I just finished reading a very interesting article by Dave Jamieson entitled “Letters From an arsonist”. The article delves into the mind of a serial arsonist (Thomas Sweatt) who set more than 350 fires over 25 years in Washington D.C. and costing the city millions of dollars before he was arrested and sentenced to two life terms in the federal penitentiary.

The letters are a fantastic look into how humans interact with fire and how the human mind can develop such an exotic relationship with something like fire - even in a fetishistic way. From one of the letters:

Why did I set the fires when I set them? That’s an all too familiar question that can not be understood if you don’t know the story. There were different reasons for most of the fires. It could be because of one feeling the need to have power about something or someone….I don’t want you driving that car so the fire becomes a weapon to destroy it.

Or in case of some house fires—I might like a particular style of a house and wish one day to own it (but it’s only a dream). Fire is a tool to destroy and some house fires also becomes my phantasy of people scrambling to exit windows and sort-of feel like they need my help so I stay and watch.

Fire destroys things, kills people, moves people in cars, keeps people warm, cooks people’s food, lights things, lifts planes, and on and on. Our relationship with fire is an oddly philosophical one.

After doing for so long it just became easier and easier but the fear of getting caught was always there. Each fire was like doing the first time and I’d always take deep breaths and ask the Lord to forgive me for what I’m about to do…

Sweatt was sexually driven to set these fires and received great erotic pleasure from watching the houses burn and the people escape for the sake of their lives. He constantly states that his intentions were not to harm the people, although he acknowledges that fire is “risky business”.

[...] it was her grandson that led me back to that house later that night only because I didn’t know him personnaly but saw him get the mail out of the mailbox on the front porch and he was tall and has a muscular build and I wanted to meet him so I would live out my phantasy thru fire watching him jump out of the window for help and come running to me. I raced home to watch the news and was sadden about the fatality but was fascinated by this huge fire. Wow! I’ll always remember this house.

My passion in fire protection engineering involves chasing the trails of fire - any clues or physically meaningful signatures that fire gives off - and characterizing them in a scientific sense. It’s very intriguing to break down fire into thousands of different smaller actions and facets.

At the same time, I realize that there is some ingrained mental pleasure that humans get from fire - some understood relationship. Sweatt led the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms on a long chase as he developed his dangerously passionate love for fire.

Give the article a read when you have some extra time - it will take about an hour. You will get quite a bit of insight into the madness and intricacy of the human mind and fire. And how they work together in ways both good and bad. It was how Sweatt expressed himself in seeking pleasure.

Some people use guns, knives, etc. as weapons—I use fire as a source of weapon—Not afraid of fire at all; for it is my friend and I miss it. [...]

Now, this arsonist, Sweatt, took it to an extreme and caused 2 deaths, destroyed many homes, used up countless hours of fire service resources, and permanently affected the lives of many, many people. At least 353 fires. How does he feel today?

There was only 1 death, he wrote, so I left it at that.

[...] Those demons are still in me.

Earlier today, the professor for my Combustion class mentioned that for our final project, we will be working on a problem that currently has no solution. This intrigued me of course, as I wondered if our final grades would have no solution as well. After he explained, it made all the more sense and reminded me why my love and passion is in the field of fire protection engineering, the school I go to, and the people I work with: they all heavily align with my values and principles of sharing knowledge and making information available to everyone, everywhere.

[From NASA]

So, let me explain his model simply by example:

The professor said that when he first started this class 2 years ago, the students were working on a different problem with no solution… at the time. The class worked together and in the end the results were so significant that a couple of students took the initiative to publish the results in a scientific journal. The same happened when the class was taught last year - project done, paper published.

So what does this mean and why do you care? Well, all too often in the academic world, people can get caught up in working on projects and sort of work themselves into a dark corner where nobody gets to benefit from the results… and this is done in real life as well, not just academics. This is where the ridiculous amount of collaborative technology available to us comes in to play. Want to gather up notes on the Smagorinsky constant and publish them for anyone to find who is searching for them in the next 1000 years? Easy: 5 minutes. Want to publish your results in the most useful way? Easy: work on an open source project in your area along with your research - or make your own.

…Or you could write a paper, finish your thesis work, wrap up the loose ends in a few years and show a flashy poster of your work 5 years after anybody cares about it anymore or thinks it to be useful.

I digress. I just wanted to stress this new method of collaboration that is among us, and how it’s going to change the way that we work together and grow together in fire protection engineering and fire science.

[From Rowan University College of Engineering]

Why not make use of motivated students and brainpower when they come together? Here is me welcoming this new phase of community and collaboration in a field that directly impacts life safety and makes safer buildings around the world. So when we work on that final project in a few weeks, it’s not really at all about a grade anymore - it’s about a new way of doing science - together.

Update: This is exactly the kind of stuff that I’m talking about here, posted today on the SFPE National blog that I set up a year ago - collaboration: Foundation Funded Research underway at WPI

So there are scientists, and there are artful scientists. Here’s version 0.9999 of the graph from my last post in all of its full and smooth glory. It’s for a homework exercise in my combustion course (go ahead, click for full size - it’s fantastic):

Well, why do you care about my graph? I certainly do. There are many books about conveying information in statistics and how to present data in a very informationally dense format, sure. But let’s think about this graph that I made for a homework assignment. The purpose of the homework was for me to learn, yes? And that nice orange line bought me some extra credit worth 25 points, but that’s another story. I want to learn it inside out, run it amongst others, and in the end communicate great things to many, many people. Every time. With every action.

So I could have left the default Excel settings for the chart, but my soul cannot allow such a thing.

This graph shows relationships, it runs a conversation with itself and lets the numbers drive by each other and say hello. It’s living, and it talks to me. Check out the dark red diamond line called “Mixture Fraction”. This guy drives all of the others. Then the f’s come in. Then we go back to the real quantities like the mass fraction of oxygen (Yo) and fuel (Yf) and we can also grab temperature (in Kelvin) based off of what those f’s are telling each other.

Yes, yes, Kris. You are talking nonsense, I don’t like it. Well, perhaps I’m not as eloquent and direct as this guy (watch this great motivating video, do I ever let you down?):

But our messages are the same. Do what you love, and work your ass off at it. All the time. Not the old and dead cliched way of “do what you love” - but the minute by minute, day by day, just got home tired from work but I need more, but I don’t have the time, wake up and do it, it keeps you up and night, but I want to watch TV every day, what you REALLY want to do, an exact thing/action/pursuit every day until you die - kind of way.

If I wasn’t here loving my graphs at 2:34 AM in the morning and pondering the million things I just learned from this 4 day exercise, I’d quit. If I doubted for a second (as the guy in the video says), I’d do us all a favor and leave here. But I want this knowledge, and these relationships so very badly. And when the end-result comes along, I have a sick urge to spend so much time and detail on things so that others may benefit. Make your life, thoughts, and business public, and see what happens to it. It skyrockets.

Now do you see why I care about my graph? I’m proud of what it represents. Now go off and care about your own graph. For the rest of us.

I just finished the longest problem that I think I’ve ever worked on in my life. It took about 14 hours to complete this one problem in my combustion homework, but damn was it satisfying to finish and solve!

There is a serious amount of knowledge being learned here by all, and it does take time, sure; but it is very satisfying work. I could tell you about all of the above data points and how the mixture fraction of the fuel is a localized and conceptual version of the mass fraction or how the Shvab-Zel’Dovich parameters help to make such analysis possible, but I’ll leave that for you to learn in the combustion class if you take it.

Instead of that kind of talk, I was driven last night to my stove. I often get distracted while reading about fire and start fantasizing of ways that it actually connects to real life - I want to see it. And it just so happened that I was reading about the subject of diffusion flames.

Understandibly, I still have many unanswered questions about the love of my life: fire. Things like why it looks at me how it does with different colors representing how efficient the flame is burning or how much carbon is being produced and thereby how much radiant heat energy is being lost (I’m looking at you, sleek yellowy flame on the left).

So I was led to removing the cover panel on my gas stove last night and equipped only with a wet towel, I wanted some answers right then and there. Long story short, after 30 or so minutes of messing with the disassembled stove at midnight, I had a much better understanding of diffusion vs. premixed flames. For you, just know that there is an amazing amount of philosophy, fire dynamics, and fluid mechanics going on as soon as you turn the knob on your stove to on. Enough there for me to spend my whole life pondering about with passion, even.

In other news, on the opposite of my topic, it is quickly getting cold up here in MA. Tonight it’ll hit around 45 F before the sun peeks around the roof shingles. Life is good. Cool weather, good friends, and lots and lots of dedication to studies. And a bit of fun, come on now.

Well, I’m off for a much needed break. Take over on tackling your passion for me.

Peace.

Three fire engines and a ladder truck just blared by my house going southbound on the street and stopped about two blocks away. What a beautiful sound of the QO2 siren screaming by on a chilly city night. It takes me back to a few years ago, hearing the fire dispatch alert going out, gearing up in seconds at the station with 45 pounds of firefighter bunker gear, and peeking around each street corner as the truck leaned away from the turn - not knowing if there would be a small car fire or a huge commercial building fire. Terrified people waiting with nobody left to turn to as their family members are endangered by the power of fire. Their life history, photo albums, accomplishments, and material possessions having flames licked at them and could be vaporized into an ashtray within only a minute.

That blaring sound is why I do what I do. And people ask me, why do I like this field so much? Fire is mesmerizing, fire is better understood each day that passes by, but still greatly misunderstood. Fire is extremely useful. Fire is extremely devastating. Fire has context to define its will.

To me, understanding the dynamics of a fire dancing and licking around can be like trying to understand the psychology of billions of different humans. It can be like trying to catch something running away by using differential equations and fluid dynamics. It can be like painting a picture for hours or days and the end product is something that sticks with you every day for the rest of time.

It is like playing on a sports team and working with your family when working in the lab. We work for 3 hours on setting up temperature sensors and calorimeters and even more hours discussing and brainstorming in a room boiling over with a mental flood of science, passion, logic, deduction, and induction. All about fire. Then we burn our creation in 1.73 minutes and forever destroy it, releasing yet another drop in the endless pool of ongoing knowledge.

Here is a video that exhibits a very successful test burn from today. The box is filled with small plastic cups and packed like one that would be shipped. We set up instruments inside to measure the fire size, temperature inside at different places, cameras to record the flame standoff distance, and a ton of other information.

I guess in my version of 1984, things make sense in this way: fire is knowledge, community is power, and intuition is freedom.

This is why I do what I do.