Wednesday, June 30, 2010

How to survive a wildfire if you're trapped in your car

How to survive a wildfire if you're trapped in your car


How to survive a wildfire if you're trapped in your car

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Use extreme caution when around wildfires.
Use extreme caution when around wildfires.
A wildfire, also known as a wildland fire, forest fire, brush fire, vegetation fire, grass fire, peat fire, bushfire (in Australasia), or hill fire, is an uncontrolled fire often occurring in wildland areas, but which can also consume houses or agricultural resources. [1] Wildfires can be life threatening. Following these steps will help you to survive a wildfire if you are trapped inside your vehicle.

Steps

  1. Avoid being caught in your car. This is the safest possible action because a car offers no protection from radiant heat.[2] Staying in your car during a fire is a dangerous measure, to be used only in an emergency if you are caught in the fire with absolutely no other alternative. While it may be safer than trying to run from the fire on foot, the degree of fire intensity will impact your survival chances--if it is a grass fire, you might be fine but if it is inferno-like, your chances of survival are slim. Kevin Tolhurst, a "fire behavior specialist" from the University of Melbourne, warns that a car is a very bad place to be in during an intense fire because the small volume heats up too quickly.[3] It is therefore recommended that:
    • If you have time to flee a fire (from your home, place of work, etc.), use that time to be ahead of the fire, so that you won't be caught by it while driving. Make the decision to stay or leave well in advance of being forced to make the choice.
    • If you can shelter in your home or a building, prefer doing so over staying in your car.[4]
  2. Follow the remaining steps if you have no choice but to remain with your car during a fire front.
  3. Roll up all of the car windows and close all of the air vents. Put the air-conditioning on recirculation. Leave the engine running, even when you stop.[5]
  4. If you are moving still, drive slowly and very carefully.
    • Keep the headlights and hazards lights on. Visibility will be considerably reduced.
    • Watch for other vehicles and pedestrians. Collisions and injuries are a major hazard in low visibility; people may be panicking and possibly running on the road.
    • Watch for fleeing livestock and wildlife.
    • Use your horn if you are worried that people or animals are nearby but you cannot see them.
  5. When you stop driving, park behind a solid structure if possible. This will help to block radiant heat, which is the killer heat.[6]
    • If you cannot find a solid structure to take the heat, stop the car in a clear area, beside the road or in a similar suitable place. Be sure that you are nowhere near overhanging trees and branches, near combustible material that may ignite, or anything else that will burn fiercely.
  6. Get down on the floor as low as possible. Keep below window level.
    • Cover up with a woolen blanket or coat. Do not use synthetics as these will melt and cause severe burns. Cover children and reassure them before covering yourself.
    • If you have water, drink it. If you have enough to spare, wet a small cloth to breathe through.
  7. Stay in the vehicle until the main fire passes. While the fire front is crossing, resist the temptation to get out and run. Expect the following possibilities:
    • Engine may stall and not restart.
    • Air currents may rock the car.
    • Some smoke and sparks may enter the vehicle.
    • The temperature inside the car will increase. This temperature increase may be unbearable and you, or others in the car, are at risk of passing out.
    • Keep reassuring others in the vehicle if you have the energy (remember that the fire will make hearing difficult). Everyone will be scared, and some may go into shock. If anyone panics, you will need to calm them quickly and help them resist the temptation to flee.
  8. Get out of the car once the fire front has passed.[7] Immediately attend to children and anyone experiencing distress or shock.
    • If you have a cell phone, call for help immediately.
    • If the car is still operational, drive it away from the fire to safety.
    • If the car is no longer working, or continues to burn, walk away from the fire and seek help. Keep well clear of burning trees (widow makers) which can drop branches and injure or kill you.

Tips

  • Metal gas (petrol) tanks and containers rarely explode.
  • If you have to stop, park away from the heaviest trees and brush; try to stay on the open road if you cannot see anything more.
  • When driving, if you see smoke, turn around and drive away from it.

Warnings

  • This is dangerous and should only be done in an emergency, but you can survive the firestorm if you stay in your car.
  • Do not drive through heavy smoke. You risk hitting other vehicles, fleeing people and animals, or driving into inanimate objects such as rocks and ravines.
  • Fire trucks, fallen trees, power poles and wires, and burnt bridges can cause road closures instantaneously.[8]

Things You'll Need

  • Always keep a woolen blanket stored in the car. A spare blanket has so many uses from keeping warm to rescuing wildlife, as well as being useful if trapped in a fire, so it makes sense to keep one on standby at all times.
  • Always keep water in your car. This is especially important if you live in area frequently subject to fires.

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Today is Camera Day! How to Use a Canon T50 35mm Camera

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The Canon T50 is a beautiful, extremely simple manual-focus film SLR which, nonetheless, is huge fun to use and capable of getting superb results if you use it properly. You might have one of these kicking around a closet somewhere, or you might know someone who has one, or you can easily pick one up from eBay for next to nothing. Get one, dust it off, read this, then go out and party like it's 1983.

Steps

Basic setup

  1. Change the batteries. Even if your camera has batteries in it, change them with fresh ones, because you don't want to run out of battery power while you're out shooting.
    • Push the latch to open the battery door.
      Push the latch to open the battery door.
      Unlatch the battery door and open it. Do this gently because these are horribly flimsy and really easy to break. Drop out any batteries that were in there.
    • Check the battery terminals for corrosion if you just bought the camera. If they are covered in a white residue, spray on some electrical contact cleaner and carefully scrape away any residue with a sharp implement.
    • Drop in a couple of alkaline or carbon-zinc batteries.
      Drop in a couple of alkaline or carbon-zinc batteries.
      Drop in a couple of AA batteries. Never use rechargeable batteries--Canon warns against this (which either means that the metering will be wrong or your camera will explode). Do your part to destroy the environment by dropping in a pair of disposable batteries ("heavy duty" carbon-zinc or alkalines).
    • Close the battery door; again, be as gentle as you can, to avoid breaking it.
  2. Turn the main dial to "B.C" to check your batteries.
    Turn the main dial to "B.C" to check your batteries.
    Be paranoid and check your batteries even if they are new. It's good to get in the habit of doing this regularly. Spin the main dial around to "B.C" (for "Battery Check"); if the camera beeps at you, the batteries are good.
  3. Mount the lens. The lens will be of one of two styles of Canon FD lenses, both of which mount slightly differently:
    • Old-school FD lenses have a chrome locking ring which you tighten to keep the lens in place.
      Old-school FD lenses have a chrome locking ring which you tighten to keep the lens in place.
      Lenses with chrome locking rings, which is everything before about 1979 - Line up the red dots on the camera body and lens, then twist the chrome locking ring clockwise (looking from the front of the camera), until it's comfortably tight.
    • "New FD" lenses, like this 28mm f/2.8, mount just like the bayonet lenses they pretend to be.
      "New FD" lenses, like this 28mm f/2.8, mount just like the bayonet lenses they pretend to be.
      New FD lenses - These don't have a locking ring. Again, line up the two red dots. Then, rotate the body of the lens until it clicks into place, just like the bayonet-mount lenses for other cameras which these lenses pretend to be.
  4. Make sure the aperture ring is at "A", and keep it there.
    Make sure the aperture ring is at "A", and keep it there.
    Make sure your aperture ring is set to "A". Taking it off "A" will lock the shutter speed to 1/60 second. This is only useful for shooting either manual flashes (if you must nuke subjects with direct flash, use Canon's Speedlite 244T, which works fine in "A") or for use with strobes in a studio. For everything else, you'll want to keep it on "A".

    Of course, for the serious headbangers out there, this works as a very crude, limiting, unmetered fully-manual mode.

Loading your film

  1. Lift the rewind knob to pop open the back of the camera.
    Lift the rewind knob to pop open the back of the camera.
    Open the back of the camera. Do this by lifting the rewind crank upwards. This might be a little stiff, so don't be too afraid of using a little force.
  2. Drop the film into the film chamber.
    Drop the film into the film chamber.
    Drop the film into the film chamber.
  3. Pull out the film leader to the red mark.
    Pull out the film leader to the red mark.
    Pull the leader of the film out as far as the red mark on the right next to the take-up chamber. (It may not look like it's as far as the red mark in the picture; that's because film isn't flat.)
  4. Push the rewind crank down into its normal position. You might have to wiggle the rewind crank back or forth a little until it engages the film properly.
  5. Close the back of the camera.
  6. The ASA dial is set to 100 here, for Kodak Ektar 100 film. Hold down the silver button (indicated) to unlock it.
    The ASA dial is set to 100 here, for Kodak Ektar 100 film. Hold down the silver button (indicated) to unlock it.
    Set the film speed on the ISO/ASA dial. Press the silver button to unlock the dial, then hold it as you turn the dial till the line is parallel with the speed of the film.
  7. Advance the film till the frame counter reads 1.
    Advance the film till the frame counter reads 1.
    Advance the film to frame 1. Make sure the main dial is set to PROGRAM and press the shutter button; the motor drive will advance the film (if it doesn't, you're in trouble). Press it a few more times until the arrow in the frame counter window is pointing to the 1.

Shooting

  1. Pictures don't take themselves; get out there when the light is great to get shots like this. Shot with a Canon T50 and Canon 28mm f/2.8 loaded with Fuji Velvia 50.
    Pictures don't take themselves; get out there when the light is great to get shots like this. Shot with a Canon T50 and Canon 28mm f/2.8 loaded with Fuji Velvia 50.
    Get out there. Get out any time the light is good (which isn't the same thing as bright daylight; early mornings and late evenings are the best).
  2. Set the camera to PROGRAM
    Set the camera to PROGRAM
    Turn the main dial to PROGRAM. This is the camera's only exposure mode, which is fully automatic. You'll only need to turn this to L to lock the shutter while it's stowed away to prevent accidental shots; keep it around your neck and you won't need to bother doing this.
  3. Look for things to photograph. This is covered in quite some detail in another article.
  4. Look through your viewfinder and focus on whatever you want in focus. Don't worry about this being a manual-focus camera; the T50's viewfinder is so enormous and bright that you'd have to try to get a shot out of focus. You also have two useful focusing aids to ensure that your shots are sharp. One is a split image, the circle right in the center, which splits the images into two pieces, and which are aligned when the image is in focus.

    The other (more useful) aid is a microprism ring around the outside of the the split screen. This will cause any defocus to be far more obvious than it would be otherwise; when it's out of focus, this area will flicker and display a very obvious "cross-hatched"-ish pattern. Turn the focus ring until either the split image is no longer visibly split, or until the image in the microprism ring is visibly sharp.
  5. Gently half-press the shutter button. This will wake the camera up and you'll see a little green P appear.
  6. Check the green P. This actually conveys some useful information:
    • A solid, non-blinking P: green means go![1] The camera is happy and ready to shoot.
    • A slowly-blinking P: If it blinks about twice a second, it's warning you that your picture might be blurred by camera shake (this happens if the shutter speed is down to 1/30 or slower). Use a tripod or brace yourself against a solid surface.[2] If you find yourself down in this range quite a lot, you might want to consider shooting a faster film.
    • A rapidly-blinking P: You're dead; you're either trying to operate outside the T50's metering range or you're going to need a shutter speed longer than two seconds. The T50 simply cannot operate under extreme low-light conditions, sorry.
  7. Shot with a Canon T50 and 28mm f/2.8 shooting Fuji Velvia 50.
    Shot with a Canon T50 and 28mm f/2.8 shooting Fuji Velvia 50.
    Press the shutter button all the way down to shoot. The camera's noisy little motor drive will automatically advance the film to the next frame. Keeping it held down will make it shoot again just under a second later. This might be a good idea if you're down in the slowly-blinking-P range (since it increases the chance that one of the shots won't be blurred by camera shake), otherwise you're wasting film by doing this.
  8. Keep moving around and shooting different things, like reflections. Shot with a Canon T50 and 28mm f/2.8 on Fuji Velvia 50.
    Keep moving around and shooting different things, like reflections. Shot with a Canon T50 and 28mm f/2.8 on Fuji Velvia 50.
    Keep moving and shooting until you hit the end of the roll. The camera will beep loudly at you when you're out of film.

Unloading the film

  1. Press the rewind release button on the base of the camera.
    Press the rewind release button on the base of the camera.
    Press the rewind release button on the bottom of the camera.
  2. Pop out the little lever on the rewind crank and turn it, lots.
    Pop out the little lever on the rewind crank and turn it, lots.
    Lift out the rewind crank lever and turn it clockwise. Keep going. You'll feel the crank get stiffer for a bit, then there will be a very obvious release of tension as the camera lets go of the film. Turn it a few more times after that.
  3. Lift up the rewind crank to open the back of the camera. Then drop the film out.
  4. The Canon T50, despite its simplicity, will get you shots every bit as good as you can get from professional cameras. Shot with a Canon T50, 28mm f/2.8 and Fuji Velvia 50.
    The Canon T50, despite its simplicity, will get you shots every bit as good as you can get from professional cameras. Shot with a Canon T50, 28mm f/2.8 and Fuji Velvia 50.
    Get the film developed and scanned (don't bother doing the last part yourself). Show the results off to the world. Thanks to its compatibility with some extraordinarily cheap lenses with great optics, the results you get from this camera will be every bit as good as the results from more complicated and expensive cameras like the Canon A-1, or even pro cameras like the F-1. The T50's lack of manual settings is loved by experienced photographers even as they curse it; it forces the photographer to think about nothing but how well they are composing the picture.

Tips

  • Try to avoid using long telephoto lenses with this camera. The T50's program is biased towards normal-to-short lenses (50mm and shorter).
  • You can force over- or under-exposure with the ASA dial, as was used here.
    You can force over- or under-exposure with the ASA dial, as was used here.
    While the T50 doesn't have exposure compensation, you can use the ASA dial to force the camera to under- or over-expose. In our example to the right, with an ASA 50 film (Fuji Velvia), the camera was being shot almost right into the sun; the ASA dial was turned to 25 to get a full stop of over-exposure in order to bring some exposure to the puddles and keep the sky bright.

Things You'll Need

  • A Canon T50
  • The T50 is compatible with a wide range of lenses from the Canon FD system; some extraordinarily cheap, like this 50mm f/1.8.
    The T50 is compatible with a wide range of lenses from the Canon FD system; some extraordinarily cheap, like this 50mm f/1.8.
    A lens. Unlike other FD cameras, this will only work with Canon FD-compatible lenses, with no hope of using FL lenses or other non-FD lenses via an adapter
  • Film. It'll be fine with almost every film made today (from ASA 25 up to ASA 1600)
  • Two, non-rechargeable AA batteries

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