4K Slow Motion Backdraft

- Hello, I'm Gav. - I'm Dan. Welcome to "Planet Slow Motion". You may have noticed that A, we are dressed as firefighters. - Alright. Oh that's great! - Let's go outside. Gav: This is our experiment area. Dan, why don't you walk us through the shipping container setup? Well, then the fire will be all inside. The important thing to know outside is these doors that can be closed and opened. Moving on, there is also a window, one on each side, that can also be closed and opened. And we have this Dutch door... Dutch oven... - What is it?

Dutch... - Not Dutch oven. - Dutch door only. - Only the door, yes. Location of the Dutch door. I'll talk about that in a minute. Let's go in. Inside you will see our extremely nice, but extremely flammable room. Wood all over the walls as fuel. Very flammable sofa. Dead Christmas tree. They go up like an absolute. A draft occurs when there is a fire in a contained area. Over time, the fire will use up all the oxygen in the room and go out, but it will still burn the fuel in the form of embers. And then what can happen is that a window breaks or a door opens, causing a sudden rush of oxygen into the room, which then causes a very deadly explosion.

Firefighters normally do everything they can to prevent a draft and today we are here deliberately causing one. Yeah, the way we're going to do it is we mention this fuel in the back, the Christmas tree and the wood. Let's turn that on. And when that's done, we'll close the back doors, and then the fire will start moving across the room, toward the couch, toward the couch, you know. - Oh. All that, and it will pass, and then we'll have some flames coming out of the windows right here. I'm going to move further around the room. We will close the windows and the only thing that will be open will be the main door.

So we have our fire. It's pleasantly warm, about a thousand degrees. It's come in through the room, and all that will be open is this lower door here, allowing oxygen to come in, making the fire nice, and fully cooking the room. Then we'll close this down and start depleting it of oxygen. At that point, we'll open this top door, and after about 30 seconds of smoke coming out and oxygen coming in, our backflow explosion will be created. To measure how far the rip current goes, we place these markers every five feet all the way to the end.

And Dan has decorated them with a marshmallow. - Yeah. - Maybe we'll make some s'mores when we're done. - Why not? Gav: There we have the Phantom Flex 4K running at a thousand frames per second. And inside we have a GoPro which, I'm told, has a fireproof casing, but we'll see. - Well we'll see. All right, I think now is the time to hand over the reins to the fire department and let this thing simmer. - Alright. - Alright. It's good. (mumbling) Alright, what we're looking for now is we want fire to come out of these windows, and then we'll start blowing fire out of the door as well.

Awesome. All right, let's get some fire out of this window here. Okay, close the windows. Close the front. - Okay, the door is closing. - Dan: Just the Dutch oven open. - One minute. Gav: So we're currently starving the room. Yes, all the... all the hatches and Dutch doors are closed. Gav: The fire should be subsiding. But the fuel still burns

slow

ly. Dan: So the next step is to open the top door and let the oxygen come back in. Man: 20 seconds. Alright, they're about to open the door. Reverse started. I wonder if there are many indications as to when it's about to start.

Can you tell by the pattern of the smoke when it is about to disappear? - I don't know. Or does it just suddenly just go poof? From what I've read, it's usually pretty sudden. And it's so quiet and there's no visible flame that it doesn't actually seem that dangerous. - No. - But damn, wouldn't you like to be stopped in front of that? - I would not do it. - Yes, you simply would have no idea how much danger you were in if you stood in front of that. - (thud) Dan: You can hear the noise from inside.

Yes, some temperature noises. The sofa burns very well. - It should be pretty close now. - (thud) Oh, come on. Well that was all. - Oh! Oh! - Oh! Flippin'... - God! - Good sir! - He's almost ahead of you. - He did. Alright, let's take a look at that. Gav: As he was coming in, I let go of the handle of the frying pan. I thought, "Well, that's not going to happen anytime soon." And I quickly had to grab it again. -Dan: Bosh. - Gav: Oh my God. That was surprising... Like his head was right in front.

Dan: Good thing he's wearing a mask for this. You get absolute distance on that. Travel at least 40 feet. I ignored it like it was nothing. Like". And he will try again, directly. Oh, he's really on fire again. - Gav: It takes a while to get going, doesn't it? - Yes. - It takes a while to turn back on. - Gav: To reach that critical condition. (Gav coughs) If a plane flies through smoke, does it fall? Uh, if the density of the air... - Wow! - Oh! - Gav: Oh, God. - Dan: That was intense. Look at the ferocity of this.

That was a real one. Gav: So there were very few indications. Dan: No, there was nothing. - Gav: Oh, that... - Look at that front. - It looks incredible. - Gav: That's mental. It's like a sphere that keeps growing out of itself. Dan: It seems like there's something solid pushing it out. Pretty much all smoke and fire. God. Gav: That's crazy. - Check it out. - Dan: Oh my God. - Gav: How absolutely-- - I like how it grows from a perfectly central point. - A little flame. - Dan: Wow. It's like a dragon. Gav: I imagine a shuttle at the other end. - Dan: Yeah, like... - Except there's nothing there.

Oh, that's terrifying. That was the most robust one yet. Dan: Yeah, I think that's the effect we were going for. These have felt the heat a little. - A little stain. - Yes. - A little charring. - Oh, that one. Look at that, that's... That's nice... Oh, this could be perfect, actually. Gav: The couch and chair are gone. - The tree disappeared. - Disintegrated. Oh, look at this marshmallow. - You can see it well. - It look very nice. - Except... - I probably wouldn't eat it. It fell down, but it looks decent. Let's take a look at the side. - Oh! - It's a bit cold day.

This is pretty. You can really feel the heat when you walk through this window. Oh, that's really sexy. That's very hot. I bet you could fry an egg with that. - It's funny that you say that. In fact, I've... - Oh, yeah. - Let's try. - ...I have some eggs. - Let's take a couple. - Yes. - The big ones too. - Are you a happy person... Yes. Very good, let's see. I think it'll be warmer back here. - Yes, let's try it. - Very good, here we go. - (sizzling) - Oh, yeah. - It is cooked immediately. - (sizzling) It's sizzling.

It's burned, in any case. Cooked instantly. Well, Dan, so far on the show we've almost dropped a ghost into a hole in the Earth, from a drone. - And we pour it full of water. Yes, he almost blew one up in a wind tunnel. Why not put one in front of a giant fireball? - Makes sense. - Yes. It's in a fireproof case. Um, but again, you know, it's only fireproof until it's not. So let's hope it's not too hot. And we have all the cables coming out the back under these blankets. Hopefully the trigger cable won't melt before you press the trigger.

So you don't feel like being behind the camera? - No. - Okay, yeah. You want to keep the old eyebrows. Alright, let's do a twisted take, shall we? Yes. - Wow! - Oh! - Dan: It looks evil coming out of the sides. - He does. This is how the fire is lit. Dan: Look at that. It's just a burning box. I don't think I've ever seen through fire another fire through more fire. It's like there's nothing on fire. There was just a room full of fire. All right, let's wait for a real howler. Dan: Definitely more nervous here than there. - Yes, it's nice... - It's quite incomplete. - Yes. - And these are also some important eyebrows to lose. - Yes. - It's like a whole feature of my face disappeared. - Well, at least you have... the eyebrows of two or three people. - That's true.

They also connect in the middle, so if maybe that part burns, everything will be fine. (both coughing) Dan: Okay. You can tell it's about to happen because it starts to move out of front. This is stressful. Dan: We're underway. Gav: Five, four, three, two, one. Oh! Alright, let's take a look at that. Dan: Much more sinister from this angle. Much scarier. Gav: Well, because it will come towards us. Instinctively I want to crouch down. Oh, look at the ball. It's like a sideways geyser, in terms of how it looks in

slow

motion

. Oh, a little flame under there. - Look at it? - Dan: Yes.

It looked so cute and soft until that big flame came out. Gav: Looks like you can sleep with that before it cooks on your eyebrows. That's giving me an idea for the second part. That? Well, those were some pretty scary pictures of a pretty scary event that can happen to a firefighter. Because it's so deadly and dangerous, it was actually very difficult to find a place where we could do this. Yeah, there aren't many

backdraft

training facilities. I guess they are trying to avoid it, rather than create it. - Yes, it makes sense. For that reason, I want to say a huge thank you to the Travis County Fire Rescue who managed to fix this issue for us.

I hope you enjoyed that video. Be sure to subscribe to Slow Mo Guys and check out part 2 when we'll create a little

backdraft

of our own. We should probably get out of this building in case they decide to do some training in it. - You know what they are like. - Yes Yes.