3/30/2006: Wildfires melt metal sign, kill livestock
 

http://cellar.org/2006/meltedmetalsign.jpg

xoB sends along this one, from a gallery of wildfire images from the Texas Farm Bureau, but it's the ones he didn't send along that really blew my mind.

http://cellar.org/2006/deadlivestock.jpg

The worst devastation of this particular wildfire: apparently it spread so fast that the livestock didn't have time to react, or they found themselves fenced in and unable to escape. The gallery contains several shots that are much more horrible than the one I've chosen above. (And xoB avoided - showing our different sensibilities perhaps?)

I've been lurking for awhile now, but these pictures were very sad. The others from the Farm Bureau make it even more real. How sad that these poor animals couldn't get out of the way.

I've heard that one of the agents in the rapid spread of such range fires are burning rabbits -- other than the wind, of course.

That's terrible. But what do they do with the carcasses after?

there are other pics on that link showing them being buried in large pits.

Oh. I took a look at the gallery. >_< They're just shovelling the cattle in!

It is my understanding that there were people similarly trapped and burned alive as well. Several people.

Too done!

One of the pictures suggests, at least, that some of the animals were attempting to escape but were bound by the fences. So sad.

I had no idea grass fires got hot enough to melt a sign like that, or was this also a very impressively windy day (hence, the fabric-like appearance of it) as well?

That's really really sad seeing all those poor cattle trapped and not able to get away from the fire. What a horrible death they must have suffered.:sniff:

There was a pretty grimmy episode of CSI that used that concept ... except that the vector was not a rabbit.

I think the fire causes the wind, in some cases. Air rushing in to replace what's sent skyward by the heat of the blaze.

I'm amazed, looking at the areas that didn't burn, that barren country provides enough fuel to feed a fire like this.
That "metal" sign is probably aluminum which I believe melts at around 11 or 12 hundred degrees F. :mg:

Although the picture is listed as a metal sign, I suspect it was really plastic on a metal post. Otherwise all the other metal in the picture might have melted too.

All the other metal is steel (iron) which would require 2500 to 3000 degrees F.
I should think plastic would have burned, but you could be right.:confused: