WEBVTT

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[music playing]

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- How much do you really know about fire?

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Stop, drop, and roll that intro.

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[music playing]

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all: "Our World"!
[laughter]

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- Fire can be helpful.

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We can cook with it.
It keeps us warm.

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But it also can be very dangerous.

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Firefighters here in our world
work really hard to keep us safe.

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- We are here 24 hours,

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so in the event
that a fire does come out

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and we are dispatched to the fire,

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we are alerted through
our dispatching system.

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So the tones will go off.
[alarm ringing]

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That is a NASA call.

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[laughs]
Over the sound speakers,

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it'll tell us what type of call
that we're gonna be going to.

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Typically we have two minutes

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to get out to our truck and out
of the building en route to the call.

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If it is a fire call,
everybody but the driver

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has put on all of their--
their bunker gear.

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Strapped into our seats of our fire truck
is our air packs.

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So we sit in the seat,
put our air packs on,

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put our seatbelts on,
and then we drive to the call,

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lights and sirens.

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It's not really possible
to make anything truly fireproof.

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There's fire-resistant and fire-retardant.

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Fire-retardant is just different fibers
or chemicals

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that can help suppress something
from catching fire,

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versus fire-resistant,

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like our fire gear that we wear,

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our PPE.

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It'll protect us to a certain extent.

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So, when we get to the call,
if it is truly a fire,

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we will hook our hoses
into the fire hydrant

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and then pull the hoses and the nozzles
off of our truck,

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put our gear on,

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put a mask on,
and it attaches to our air pack.

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Put our helmet on and we're ready to go
inside the fire and fight it

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or, in the event that somebody does
need to be rescued,

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we go and also rescue them
while we are also putting the fire out.

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- Firefighters are in every community
and help is just a phone call away.

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But did you know that NASA
also works on fire safety?

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We have Dr. Gary Ruff
from NASA's Glenn Research Center

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here in the hot seat to tell us
all about fire.

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Fire away!

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- For a fire to start,
you've got to have some kind of fuel,

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something that can burn,

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and oxygen present.

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But probably most of all,
you need some external heat

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so that you can raise the temperature
up to where reactions begin.

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You suppress fires by removing one of
those three things that I said it needed,

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whether it was fuel, oxygen, or heat.

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And so some of the fire suppression agents
work by chemical means.

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Essentially that stops the reaction
between fuel and oxygen.

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Other things like water, you know,
tend to cool a surface,

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and so that puts it out.

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Or you can sometimes use
a foam fire suppressant,

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which makes a layer
between the fuel and the oxygen,

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so essentially oxygen doesn't get to it.

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In a space fire, you still need
the same kinds of things,

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you know, heat and fuel
and--and oxygen.

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You generally need some type of flow
to bring oxygen to it.

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And that causes it to have
a little bit different shape.

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One of the big things
that I've been working on

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in the last several years

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is the Saffire series of experiments.

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We wanted to see how fast those would burn

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and just some of
the burning characteristics.

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- Fire acts differently in space
than it does here on our world.

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But it's still dangerous.

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If there's a fire here on Earth,
we call the fire department.

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But what can astronauts do
if there's a fire on a spacecraft?

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Is there a space fire department?

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- Unfortunately, there is
no space fire department.

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That's why we have to give them tools

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so that they can detect a fire,
fight the fire,

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and recover from the fire
while they're living in their house.

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You want to be able to detect the fire

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as quickly as you can,

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before bad things happen
and it harms some of the equipment.

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You want to give the crew a way
to protect themselves,

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meaning whether it's breathing apparatus

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or, you know, masks,

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and then you want to give them
some way to suppress it,

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to fight the fire,
to put it out.

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Once they do that,
then you start the process of cleaning up.

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And so all of those aspects--

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detection, personal protection,
suppression, and post-fire clean-up--

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are all some of the technologies
that we work on.

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Right now, as we're talking about
exploration missions

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and people working on
the Orion capsule,

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we're working with those people
to make sure that they have

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the right smoke detectors
and the right breathing apparatus

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and the right clean-up mechanisms
and the right fire suppressants.

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- NASA is doing a lot
to keep the astronauts safe

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on the International Space Station
and as they explore farther into space.

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But can any of that fire safety
help protect us from fires here on Earth?

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- Step one is don't play with matches

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or fire or anything
without adult supervision.

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Have a smoke detector in your home.

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Go home and make sure
your smoke detector works.

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Make sure that you have batteries
in your smoke detector.

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When you change your clock,

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change your batteries
on your smoke detector.

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If you have gas in your home, make sure
you have a carbon monoxide alarm,

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so that the alarm can go off in the event
of any sort of gas leak.

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Do an EDITH drill in your home.

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Something we teach,
it's called the EDITH.

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So it's Exit Drills in the Home.

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So teaching kids and not just kids
but anybody in the family

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to, if you hear a smoke alarm going off,
to immediately exit the home.

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And always remember to shut the door.

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Shutting the door
will stop the flow of a fire.

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- The more you know about fire,
the safer you'll be.

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I'm Abby.
See you next time in "Our World."