Brain Soda Podcast - Episode 36 - Mighty Morphing Controlled Burns

Episode Date: October 7, 2023

On this week's episode we are discussing the Super Sentai series aka Power Rangers, also wildfires and controlled burns! 

Excel Cior. Brain soda. It's the Brain Soda Podcast. I, as always, demure host Kyle, joined by my co-host and co-hort Brad. How's it going? Today, we're going to be talking about controlled burns and wildfires, but first, Brad. Yes. We recently covered a band that was about 40 years into its run musically.

Last week, we covered a comic book that had been at least 20 years ago. Today we're going to be conquering a television juggernaut that for 30 years has existed in America. But before that an interesting life that continues to this day in Japan. I'm trying to think of an anime because you said a TV show, right? It is a TV show. Is it Dragon Ball Z? Today we're going to be talking about Super Sentai or as it is known here in America, Power Rangers.

Power Rangers? Okay. I didn't, okay. I only watched Power Rangers when I was like really young, probably from like, you know, three to six maybe. And I don't remember barely anything about it. But I, you know, like, going up, I've known like the general stuff, but yes. So I found it really interesting that this is the 30th year of Power Rangers in America, 93. And I probably watched it until I was about seven or eight, too, right?

So like those first initial seasons, whatever point I would have latched onto that. And then like I watched through like Lost Galaxy, which is like 98, right? So for a lot of people, our age, I feel like that is what happened. Was you watched it for mighty Mor morphine maybe a little bit longer and then you kind of fell out of it. But like a lot of things from Japan, like a lot of children's media overall, it seems from the 90s forward. There continues to be this rebooting sans reboot like it always reinvents itself I don't feel like it reboots it reinvents itself. Yeah, it always does I find so interesting that like for 30 Years this thing is continued on when so many people mock mighty more from Power Rangers for being like a cheesy acted show That's like nothing but this is because it is.

No, absolutely. There's a huge following for it. I just, yeah. You need to get some crackers and some wine because there's a lot of cheese there. Absolutely. And like, I'm going to bring this up now. I was waiting for later, but I wanted to bring this up at some point. I find it to be so interesting that this show has been around for 30 years.

It was a huge cultural phenomenon as we'll cover. Name me one well respected actor who has got like big roles, Sands, a Power Rangers. I don't know, a single actor. I mean, if I saw one, there's, there is none really. There is none. If I saw one, saw one I would bet oh that's the actual mighty more from power ranger But I think that right, but I don't think they get roles like that like independent movies B movies Like that. Yeah, they never made they never like made a big from that show for sure But that's start our journey in the mid 70s our journey in the mid-70s. Toa animation responsible for a couple different things we've talked about on the show so far. Made a show called Cayman Rider which is based on Amango. The Common Rider was a huge success for Toa and then someone

in house at Toa goes, what if we made the show in a five commoner and everybody went oh Yeah, let's do that. What's a common writer? Common writer is like this bug looking superhero So it's it's special effects based television shows and movies think about like the Kaiju with Godzilla, right? Ultraman another Japanese advent of, suited special effects shows in Japan. Primarily is what we're talking about with that. Okay.

So, Common Rider was a singular, titular hero, and Tauy's like, what if we just did that with like a team of people, right? So in 1975, we start Super Sentai and like... Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. 1975. 20 years before it comes to America. 19. Oh my god. 75. Yeah. Super Sentai is a thing. Now like mind you, there's like this kind of motif of cards that come across the masks and costume designs For those characters in the original sentai and then every season

Birds mm-hmm, okay, we did cards. We did birds. What else? Dinosaurs, uh trains Pirates, okay, so this is like a running show that like went for 20 years and then finally like let's bring it over America Yeah That's crazy my point is this yes to this day from 1975 on forward in Japan Super Sentai as it existed and Predating it coming to America. There's an interesting

He was the head of this company. I don't know if you've ever heard of him Brad. His name is Stanley. Stan Lee. Did he? Not Stanley. Stan Lee. He made that that Spider-Man guy, right? That in an entire multiverse of characters. Absolutely. Oh, yes, yeah, that's Stanley. Okay, yes, yes, all right. Now, an interesting aspect that you bring up, Spider-Man though is that a lot of these shows like Common Rider and Things like that were really inspired by Toe and Stanley Marvel Animation,

Slash, right? Their first interaction, which was the Japanese television adaptation of Spider-Man, in which he had a giant robot. Where does this sound familiar? A giant robot, a masked superhero with a giant robot. Where does this sound familiar? You know what I mean? Like, so largely inspired from that. But in their interaction, Stanley saw this show.

That was a super-centi series. And it was Sun Vulcan, right? He pitched it to Happen to America with two other people at the head of Marvel Animations, really kind of pushing to have Sun Vulcan brought here to America. Unfortunately, that didn't pan out, but another guy on the other hand, a couple years later, had been involved in music producing and had actually been developing and producing a couple of kids shows around this time to that man's name is Ham Saban. Now, Ham Saban is a Egyptian born, is really, where we do transplanted immigrant, right?

Okay, I was gonna say, like, that, where is that, Ham, like, how do you even spell it, H-A-I-M? Or, actually, that was exactly the correct spell, like, yep. So, Ham Saban though, he had he had done like the Rambo cartoon for kids Wait, there was a rambo Yeah, yeah, I know right? No right cuz what should your child be watching on Saturday morning first blood the cartoon Yeah, of course of course. Yeah, I'm gonna definitely throw them next to him. I don't think Rambo was anything like first blood, but anyway, he was also involved in like the Mr. T show,

he was involved in He-Band, various other different cartoons from the like mid to late 80s, but during a business trip, he saw some super-centive. As a matter of fact, one of the things he wanted to adapt to originally was Sun Vulcan as well. But the one that he went with was Bioman. For almost eight whole years, this guy pitched over and over and over again, some sort of adaptation of Toe's Super Sentai series. Which like conceptually... To like different companies or...

Yeah, it varies from networks. But like, let's go to the point of like how ingenious it was the way that Hame had it like in his head. Because to him, it was you take all the suited stuff, all the big Kaiju battles with the robot, you know, with the giant zords, as they're called in the series, and like using that as a predominant element of the show

and everything that happens outside of the suit, everything that happens in down-earth regular life can take place with actors adjacent to what the average American life would be like, right? Yeah, because it really did. Like they just, like, they were in high school, right? They were like high schoolers that just like did that. Yeah, they're, yeah, there are supposed to be like, right? Yeah, because it really did. Like they just like, they were in high school, right? They were like high schoolers that just like did that. Yeah, they're, yeah, they're supposed to be like high schoolers. Yeah, they all meet up at a juice bar. Yeah. I mean,

like, you know, 25 old looking high schoolers, you know, yeah. Right. Yeah. Like every other thing as far as like film and television, a 15 year old is being portrayed by like a 20 to 25 year old right? It's always weird to me, but moving on from that Oddly enough when he came into the room With the people at Fox which I would say Fox does a network because it was kind of earlier on in his exception They were taking chances. They they were going for things a little bit out of the box. Yes, they definitely did. They definitely did.

I don't believe the Simpsons would be able to have the credit of being the show that it is to this day. Have it not been for someone taking the risk of Tracy Olman show, let alone the Simpsons being, you know, spun off of it, right? So props to them for that, but only enough one of the people in the room Was one of the same people in the room when stand I'd take get this adapted into America as well So they kind of knew what was going on in the through line going from there and thus a

going on in the through line going from there. And thus a merchandising and television phenomenon of the early to mid 90s became so because Power Rangers launched an in comparative market share to like most every other children's programming of the time like Power Rangers Ridge job. Yeah, this is before. Well, I mean, there was definitely a lot of cartoons around that or time, but this is before like Pokemon and all that things, right? Ninja Turtles is still airing. Yeah, there's definitely a lot of cartoons out there. Absolutely. But like Power Rangers took the store, man. Right. It was the thing. now for sure we're not going to sit here and just give Haynes Subon his roses for sticking with

something that he felt confident in or being the guy who was willing to take chances and produce a litany of different cartoons through different times because one of the lame things about this show is that like it's a season two or three point Three of the predominant members of the cast go like hey, hey, since we're making all this money and this thing is like a huge cultural phenomenon right now Could we get paid a little bit more and he's like oh, I can those guys get me three new people right now. Could we get paid a little bit more? And he's like, oh, can those guys get me three new people right now? Like, it ends still.

Yep. So, you know, that's really fucked up. And for a guy who's like, dull with money out to senators and a, you know, huge media conglomerate and a philanthropist and things like that, it really kind of sucks that like. So this guy was kind of like the guy, the like that, that had that talks to him in the show that

No, but we will mention the fact that anybody who ever succeeded big enough to make a splash in the main modern consciousness It is the guy who plays Dora Dog and I'm gonna ask you right now Really do you know who that is no? I know I've heard of like I know there's something blue crystal blue crystal. I don't know I don't know what you mean by that is that a person? Well, Zordon's in a blue crystal, right? Kind of. Sorta. But there's another television show about blue crystal that that is it? No. Yeah, it's not freaking uh Brian Cranston Brian Cranston is Zordon really it's so great yes and actually in the

film in the in the reboot film that came out a handful of years ago at this point he appears in the opening scene as well as Elizabeth Banks is Rita yeah that's that's great that is awesome. I want to say, like, again, it was such a big thing for so long. I was into it, you were into it.

I'm sure a large part of our listenership was and, like, in that period of time, 93 to 98, those five years, like, it was kind of the biggest children's franchise of the day, but a thing that kind of comes in tail with that is you know it dies out a little bit it doesn't have the popularity string that it has but it had two movies and it continuously kind of rotated in the next sentai series once they they ran on a footage, they'd actually occurred like got the suit from Toei and shot extra footage. The string kind of became

a little thin. So we're adopting more series, we're doing this, but the numbers weren't really resulting in in US. Yes, they had like, there was like 500,000 spin-offs. Oh yeah, yeah, or adaptation, or not adaptation. adaptation. Yeah, or like reboots, but they're not, I don't know, it's just like, like each series last like a few seasons and there was like a different type. You know, they had like the dinosaurs and the, you know, you know, right, it starts with the dinosaurs that you get to aliens now. They're all zeal and now they're in space and

now they're all in space again, but But everything's animals again. Well, you say that's what the Japanese show is like though, right? And it's been going for whatever 50 years. You're right exactly so years. You're right exactly. So again, though, there's the law of diminishing returns to an extent, around a turn of the century, and then a certain animal comes in almost like a villain that were to get raised up, you know, from some spell, some from Zeta Reader, or something like that. This destructive force of a mouse walked up and said, I like what you got there guys, you wanna sell it to me, huh? And oh, the house of mouse walked up to Hame Saban's door not twice like the arbiter of death it may be. They bought a company called Fox Family Worldwide

and that came again, compliments James Bond like through the multiple productions he had had before and the large success he had had with power Rangers. They eventually got folded in and Disney then bought that company. So it now owned power rangers. The worst thing about it is that for like three billion dollars they buy this company. Power rangers is probably like one of if not the most profitable things it has from it. And instantly they're like they're like, yeah, that's cool guys. We kind of don't give. We kind of want to wash our hands of this stuff. And like, we're willing and ready to cancel power rangers.

Come like 2002, right? Well, I don't understand why they do that. Like companies do that a lot where they're like, you know, like they they want to take this another company they just bought and they get rid of their biggest thing. You know, I don't understand what the point of that is. I don't either. I mean, I do. I do because I saw it happen with WCW and I think part of it is what's our portfolio look like. Where are huge multinational corporations? But what if another huge multinational couldn could glomerate wants to fold us up in? Well, they might not want to do that. If our number one television shows professional wrestling and now, like, you know, I mean, realistically, that's what happened with AOL time

Warner. Yeah, I guess. Or it's like, they're, they're the big cash holes. And that's, that's part of the reason why Power Rangers was able to survive during the Disney years where they were kind of starved out on budgets and various other different things. Someone came up and said, hey, if we went and filmed a new Zealand, again, just like my Power Rangers was easily acceptable to those who wouldn't get concept, hey you're only spending this on a production value because I went and bought the rights to air sentai in America. Oh okay well you know I mean even if I think this is completely stupid my production cost to profit ratio is

way better than it is for any other show. Now we're going to go to New Zealand. Yeah, and like, yeah, the production costs, like they're, I'm sure they're very low because like, you know, it's just people jumping around and suits essentially. Yes, there's some CGI and stuff, but it's mostly people jumping around and suits. But that's all, but mostly that is from Centi though. You know what I mean? That's the thing. Like, there's no production value to that. It's already been shot and special fact out. The your production value is that juice bar.

Hey, gather up. Fight. Wait, wait, wait, wait. The power ranger parts, like where there's fighting. That is Japanese shot. And the parts were like, wow, you just blew my mind. You can tell. Yeah. Listen, here's the thing. If you look at live action shots of its time from Japan, it has a certain

film quality to it, light exposure and things like that are set in a certain way. And I would say a lot of European television has that same look and feel to it. It's just differently. It's different. Yeah. I don't know if it's lenses. I don't know what it is, but you can see it. And I'm telling you right now, if you were to go back and set down and say, I'm gonna watch season one of Power Rangers.

By the end of it, bro, you're gonna be like, oh yeah, that's Zoo Ranger. You know what I mean? Like, bro, you're gonna be like, oh yeah, that's Zoo Ranger. You know, automatically when, obviously you know because you're in the suits, but you would be able to tell because like, the way things look in the frame from one set to the next. If you walk out of the juice bar and into like a fight or a bunch of putty,

it would be, you could see it. It's just completely different people. Yeah, right. It makes sense because I mean usually they're stuck doubles. So what you know it's just kind of like stunt doubles of the original show. I mean kind of right. But so anyway Disney kind of starved out power Rangers and they had done everything they could from going non-union and working in New Zealand and whatever it may be to like try and stay afloat. And I'm not saying that like during this time things were like down and out really really terrible for Power Rangers because like mind you, there, I believe 10th and 15th anniversaries occurred under the Disney banner. That was like, again,

the largest profit share that they were getting from Jettex and whatever they were using Power Rangers to push for that young boy's demographic. Until they buy Marvel. Really? I think about 2008 they buy Marvel and then that's where the races really pop off. Imagine like a power ranger, power ranger Marvel crossover. That'd be really cool. Well, when they crossed off the Ninja Turtles and I was 70 year old, I thought it was really cool too. And then I didn't see that. I didn't see that. That show us. No, it's bad. Well, it sounds cool. But one of the things that is cool about Power Rangers is that throughout most of the series, the previous season comes back and has it to part with this season's heroes. Oh, that is cool. I didn't know that. That's really cool.

I thought so as well. Right. And like there's tons of little things that they do here and there. And then after a while, Disney's kind of hand-washing of the Power Rangers. Got to a point where they finally were kind of fed up and to be fair, the new toys were out of the toy box, right? You can pitch the Power Rangers right into it. Ham Saban comes back into the picture, bodies Power Rangers back the right to it. Nice.

And then ends up going on Nickelodeon. Nickelodeon has like this arbitrary rule. So seasons can only be like 20 or so episodes at Nickelodeon. So like you get the regular season. And then the end of the season is a separate one. And it's just got super tapped out of the title. I think that's an homage to Super Sentai is why they have super on for every second season of a cast or whatever, but at this point now Hasbro came in and bought it from Saban and they are now airing on Netflix. Jason David Frank has passed away unfortunately. They released a theatrical film a couple years ago. Like we were talking about a big reboot for it, and it didn't do all that well,

even though it set up a sequel, which I always find it to be funny when movies do that. Or it's like, here's our big stinger for our sequel, and like you show it to someone later. Yeah, yeah, he's leaving it open, yep. Right, you show it to someone later, and they're like, oh open. Yeah. Right. You show it to someone later and they're like, Oh, what what happens in the second one? Oh, they don't make it. I wanted to say that I feel like power rangers is the fork in the road for me. So we're going to spin all the

way back to the beginning of this and I'm seven and nine years old. I'm into the Ninja Turtles. Yes. I'm into pro wrestling. I'm a power ranger. Gotcha. And like I feel like the divide comes to I stick with Ninja Turtles more even though realistically at the time like I probably didn't like Newton Mutate. Next mutation as much as I like lost galaxy right. And the funniest thing though is that like because I stayed more in touch with my fan hood or fan dome of the Ninja Turtles that like blended me to the comic book. It like rolled me into this into that. So you think do you think it would have been more of an anime person if you were to stuff with uh So I wonder if I had stayed with Power Rangers would I have become more ingrained in like that and anime and various other elements because like I do believe to a certain extent I'm

a little bit of a Japanophile right like I love I love my Japanese adaptations. You don't watch like crazy anime's this stuff though, but yeah. That's what I'm saying. Is that like anime is, is anime honestly might be the bridge too far for me because like, I was on the ground level and I didn't find it. Well, I mean, and then there's like, whatever it's called, the like, you know,

the comics, so we're true, but yeah, besides, but yeah, mega, yes, yeah. But yeah, no, like, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah But yeah, no like for me like again, I Power Rangers for me was almost like the I watched that before I like consciously like started like Choosing what I liked I mean even though I like The peer pressure of everyone's Or even like my parent, you know, like I don't even know like I meant like you know my parents started playing it Played it for me. I'm like, oh yeah, like I like that

You know like keep playing it whereas like before like I just kind of sought out. I don't know Yeah, like I remember I like probably again You're a you know seven to nine probably is what I quit Washington started watching you know other things like for me It was more like Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network and stuff. That's when I started getting that Dittles. Same, right? Yeah, absolutely, but I do feel like that was the the crossroads for me and I I ended up being a huge comic book nerd Bruce is being like an American otaku. Exactly, you know, yeah, it's almost like, you know, like, there's like a little ember of like what we're going to like, you know, when we're younger than that ember grows and grows into like this wildfire in us as we get older. I mean, or it could be something that you have to kind of regulate and control. I mean, you do. Yeah. I mean, like, you do kind of, well, you can get

against something thinking on it, but I hope like most people's happy, don't get out of control. But let's talk about wildfires. And control burns? A little bit about control burns. All right, let's get right into it then. So wildfires, also known as porous fires, or bushfires, or wildland fires, or rural fires. There's lots of names, fires, right?

They're unplanned out of control fires that occur over an area. Large scale uncontrollable. Yeah. Yeah. Very bad things, but also like natural things, though. That's the thing that's kind of like a lot of people don't understand is that this is a natural occurring thing. We've kind of just screwed up the cycle of it. But typically in the US, though, it consists of mainly forest fires and grassland

fires. Whereas like places like Australia, it's usually like scrubland fires. So they call it like that's why they call those bushfires, you know, that they usually refer to that as bushfire over there. But on average though, they've been increasing like everything pretty much related to climate change. Right, everything, every bad thing happening to the planet is getting worse either in, and either in number of occurrences or in scale of occurrence. Yes, in severity or frequency or duration. Pretty much.

I can't say one of those three. Yeah. Right. Yeah, way to put it succinctly, yes. or duration pretty much. I can't say one of those three. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Way to put it succinctly, yes. Yeah. Yes.

So actually though this year, I mean, and it's not like down too much, but it is lower than average, but average over like 10 years, right? But so far this year in the US, there's been 43,899 wildfires, that's burned to 2.3 million acres. And that's just as of recording, you know, in 2023, September of 2023, right? Yeah, and like the early parts of the summer, here in Michigan, we were dealing with the residual effects of Canadian wildfires, right? Yeah, like this year was crazy. We had like tons of smog and stuff from the wildfires like it was bad You could smell that yeah, it was tear and like yeah, it was a weird smell though There sometimes it was like plastic. He smells and I read it's because of the the density of these gases

There's these volatile organic compounds that will get into in a second that yeah that these things pounds that we'll get into in a second. That, yeah, that these things, there's things like nitrogen dioxide or ozone or these aromatic hydrocarbons like benzene and stuff, which is what, probably what we were smelling goes aromatic hydrocarbons. And even like lead. Right, yeah, it wasn't plastic, right?

Yeah, you know, it wasn't plastic, but like it had a plasticity smell because like the way that it worked was like, the woody smell you know fell in Canada and then what was left was this plasticy like chemical smell it was crazy man when I walked out a couple times I'm like it literally smells like plastic out here like it was so weird but I'd average though right in the last 10 years about 44,575 wildfires occur in the U.S. and 6 million

acres get burned, though. So like, you know, 2.3 versus 6. Like, it's pretty low, you know, but I mean, we're still going to the fall and wintertime. So we have a few months. It'll get worse, right? Yeah. And as of right now, as of right now, there's wildfires in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, and Washington. Kern. To all of our Western listeners in the continental United States, sorry.

I don't know what else to say. I know, man. But this happens every year, right? So I play D&D with a teacher from California. And literally in the years that we have played together, it feels like consistently you will speak to him and be like, what's on fire today? Yeah, it's a natural phenomenon, right?

Like it's supposed to happen every year. But we'll talk about this in a little bit, but it's because a lot of it's worse now because of the way we have managed the fires. You know, like it's not controlling the burns, isn't just to control it to help it, but to control the stop crazy fires, right? Right.

Yeah. Right, because there's less underbrush to help catch and spread fires, right? Right. Yeah. Right. Because there's less underbrush to help catch and spread fires, right? Exactly. Right. Yeah. So like, I mean, and a lot of it, climate change has a lot to do with this, right? I mean, it releases tons of CO2 when wildfires happen.

It's burning up trees and everything. So all that carbon has to go somewhere. It's going into the atmosphere. Like, that's one thing, but it also, so warm, dry weather conditions is what, you know, typically is when they start long-term droughts or an earlier or faster snow melt during the spring has lengthened the fire seasons, you know, because it gets right out earlier. Things are drier, faster.

And then vegetation accumulating in areas is like you're adding that fuel, you know, like that's a big thing is that there used to be like small wildfires, small, like, you know, ground or, you know, like crawling fires, whereas now we kind of prevent those, you know, because there's state parks or whatever. You know, there's campgrounds in those areas or things like that. We don't want these little tiny fires coming through because humans are there, or even like there's just settlements. You know, there's people, there's little towns around the area, you know, you don't want to fire around your woods in your backyard or whatever. But like some areas of the United States and of the world, right, it's not just the US, obviously. They need that, you know, that like that's what keeps it from becoming a crazy fire.

And there's other things too. Let me ask you this really quick. So what would like an invasive species do as far as a wildfire is concerned? Things like invasive grasses in prairies, they are easier to burn than native grasses. So when a fire comes through there, they ignite more or even invasive insect infestations that come through and just sweep through and just kill tons of trees and stuff like that, leaving much of dead standing wood in the area, and then, you know, there goes fuel. So actually, you know, like I would say, no, like the invasive species, like are worse. Another thing that invasive species affect is the way that fire is spread through the forest and invasive vines and stuff like

that. Places where there, it was in vines before allow trees to catch fire, a fire because the vines catch fire and then that allows the fire to creep higher and higher into the canopy. So actually like invasive species are a big problem with wildfires, you know. You don't really think of that, but so like yeah, like I said, all these things are partially attributed

to climate change. And we've seen increases of these conditions in a lot of fire prone areas across the western US and Australia and places like Siberia and Canada. You know, Canada, like we said, Canada has tons of wildfires too. We have like tons of forest up there. You know, like pretty much where people all live. Right. Canada, more people live, I think, below where we live, then in Canada, then like, then don't.

You know, like they're actually, like mostly centered south of the thumb of Michigan, I guess. Oh, yeah, because it does it, it like dips down past the state line doesn't it? Yeah, yeah, down about it. Detroit and everything. Yeah, we're like one of the most northern states in the Union. Exactly.

Yep. That's why. Yeah. And like so like the urbanization too, like I was saying, you know, that really like, I mean, I'm saying Canada, like, you know, urbanization is another reason why like it spreads. But why? Okay, let's talk about the spreading though. So there's four main ways that fire spreads,

so like the way they classify fire spreading, right? The first way is ground fires. And you would think that's like, you know, along the ground. But no, that's actually underground fires. These are things that, that by like subterranean roots and stuff. Yeah. I guess a ground fire would be considered, like, there's coal fires, you know?

I've read, like, right. Right. Yeah. There's coal fires that are going for like a hundred years. I guess that be considered a ground fire, right? Right. Because they're talking about, like, the ground itself is on fire. Ground fire.

Right. Yeah. I'm the grass at the surface level, but the ground is up. What you dig into is a flame. Yeah, it's crazy. Most of the time it's like peat bugs and stuff like that are the most common things. Like when they get dry, it becomes like super flammable, right? And to try to stop the forest for or buried organic matter, things like that, you know, they

get dried out, a fire ignites somehow, and then they kind of just, they have enough oxygen and they kind of just smold it, right? Right. And then you'd smoke their way for like days or months or even years sometimes. One example was in Eastern Sumatra, in Indonesia, when there was this rice land development, right? They were trying to like make this area area turn into rice land and there was a

peat bog there and they unintentionally dried it out and then it caught fire so like there was this huge area that caught fire like this peat bog right yeah but the one way we you know when you think of a ground fire is actually called a crawling or a fire, right? This is right. This is fed by like, you know, leaves and low vegetation on the forest floor, or even timber, you know, like bark and whatnot. I'm in grass and small shrubs. And this usually burns at lower temperatures than other fires.

And sometimes spreads slowly, but through things, but it like, usually like wind and slopes will cause it to speed up. Right, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, the crawling in the surface fires or surface fires, whatever, they need, like those are the kind of the ones that we kind of like to see.

I mean, not that we like want to see fires, but like those are the ones that kind of are naturally occurring before they get out of hand. Oh, even natural fires can get out of hand. Don't get me wrong, like, you know, natural wildfires they get out of hand. You know, even natural fires can get out of hand. Don't get me wrong. Like, you know, natural wildfires can get out of hand. But like, that's the ones that kind of just come through and burn the underbrush.

Because when you think of certain woods or, you know, forests, you got to think of these tall trees that are just like big, you know, the trunks are just, you know, hundreds of feet tall. And then all the vegetation of those trees are, you know, way trunks are just, you know, hundreds of feet tall. And then all the vegetation of those trees are, you know, a way up high, right? Exactly. So, and these are giant trees, right? With thick bark. So if a fire is going to come through this little, you know, forest fire, or, you know, floor fire, this crawling, the surface fire, right? It'll get some of

the roots, low branches. Exactly. And that's about it. Giant redwood forest, right? Yeah, so those are the natural fires, and it clears out the way for their seedlings and the saplings, because they're adapted to that. Like some of them even need that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they need that heat. There's certain pine trees and stuff

that are covered, the pine cones are covered in sap. So when it falls, and there's a fire in a fire melts the sap which allows the pine cone to open You know like that's like away You know it's evolved to to use that right? Well, and it makes sense too because like the Ashton remains and the mixing with the soil seems like it could be a pretty fertile ground for seedlings and saplings and things like that to kind of rebirth from almost you know. Oh yeah I mean like that's that's the such an outpourous work

right like you have this very thin layer of like nutrient rich soil from all the dead stuff like the dead stuff creates the living, the next life, you know. Right. Circle of life. But yeah. But anyway, so the next type of fire. And this is the one that kind of screws everything over is the ladder fires. And that is what kind of what the name implies, right? It's a fire that kind of takes that crawling surface fire and climbs it up to the upper canopy, right?

And that's caused by things like smaller trees or downed logs or vines. And you know, like these things, like, you know, they're like the branching of the lower to the upper canopy. And like I said, in some of those places with these invasive, well, vines and stuff stuff like that they have caused fires where they previously wasn't so think of these giant these giant trunks that didn't have anything

growing now they have these vines that go all the way up to the top of it so those vines burn and burn and burn all the way up to the top and then they catch the leaves on fire you know so like that's like yeah man it's crazy you know the Maui Fryer has happened to recently but like overall in the last number of years with the influx of them we've seen how much of these fires do you think have gone from like crawling fires to them climbing fires that have gotten completely out of hand or like have the wildfires just gotten so big that like I think it's not really climbing it's just a mast you know what I mean like I think yeah like most these big wildfires

we hear about definitely have all four of the types of fires okay I've gotten to the fourth one yet but yeah because like you know really like if you just have a crawling fire like yes it can be devastating it can't right me wrong way there's have a crawling fire you like yes it can be devastating it can right me wrong way There's times where crawler's good like you know wipe things out even separate or any of fires right any fire is bad Fire is yeah, which is again encroaching like urbanization. This is why it's not a problem if it's hundreds of miles away You know like are you from any wait Touch you much. Yeah, I mean I guess yeah But anyways, the last type of fire

is the crown or canopy or aerial fires, right? This is where the landifiers bring the, you know, come up to the crown or the canopy of all this force. And this, when it, this happens, this is kind of where things go bad, right? Because you're your whole force Exactly the whole the whole force is on fire like once you know once the the canopy is caught There's I mean that's what it's gonna start raging, you know like

Anything burning up top in that canopy now is going to fall. If it's not falling, it's releasing more ash and burning, you know, ember and ash that are going to then spread out to more things, far more than the air up there. Exactly. Yeah. Because there's open air, you know, you got that top canopy now, it's just open air up there. So more stuff can spread it. It can spread towards more of the canopy, and more, you know, like this is the ignition of the crown, it's called crowning, you know, but there's another term called crowning,

I think, is that what you have getting birthed. Oh, isn't that way you're getting birth alive, you know? Yeah, yeah, but it's also called that in the fire. And it really, like a lot of that depends on like the density of the vegetation, the canopy height, the continuity of it, and like the presence of sufficient ladder, or you know, surface and ladder fires, right? So like it's like fire scientists, wildfire scientists, like study this, you know, and they're like, you know, they can tell like, oh man, this forest,

you know, it's the trees are too spaced out.. They're not gonna, it might spread a little bit or you know, or they're super close together or there's this tall. Like it's a very technical like technical science now. It's really cool, yeah. I mean, I could see that too because you would have to like try angulate branches and and heat, you know, the temperatures of flames and various other things to try to correlate and correspond to like Yes Exactly. There's different ways to fight it. It's going to go one way likely. If it starts here, it's gonna go every which way It's a very exact site. I'm not exact, but like you know, definitely not exact sites at all, but it's a very advanced site Should I say. Like, and fire suppression is not only about extinguishing it,

but it's about preventing and modifying the environment to prevent the movement of the fire, right? So managing these fires can help with vegetation reduction, like invasive species and whatnot, and also like improved wildlife habitat, because if it's managed correctly, we can actually make fires beneficial for the area. Like I've talked about, you know?

Right, yeah. Yeah, so like fires need three things. Like I guess I should have started with that, but with this whole thing, but yeah, it needs heat, oxygen, and fuel, right? Those are the three things that a fire needs. Is those, if it doesn't have one of those three, it's the kind of a fire. You need heat, you need something very hot, you need oxygen to feed it,

and you need that fuel to be the thing burning, right? So typically, the best way to put out a fire or the way the firefighters put out wildfires is reducing heat. And that's by adding water or a fire retardant on the ground using pumps for fire engines or in the air with helicopters, airplanes with like I'm sure everybody's seeing them. If you haven't looking up, it's awesome. So like they jump like huge Olympic sized pools worth of water. I do these wildfires at school. Now another way that they do it area-ally is with like dirt right? Yeah different like fire retardants and stuff like that yeah like because that would be like yeah I was gonna say okay so that would be oxygen right so they're trying to starve it but I don't know

yeah that would probably be like surface fires you know where they haven't really caught the campy where the like the crown hasn't that is a very good point is that depending on like, yes, again, the fire science that we were just talking about. Okay, look, this fire could ladder out, but if you were to starve it right now and hit, you know, and have fire freighters able to approach it so that you sand versus water or something like that.

Exactly. I'm sure the steam, I'm sure the steam off of that is another concern for the safety of like our first responders Oh big time, man big time right so like maybe don't go in with water initially going with sands Mm-hmm, and then we can have firefighters approach with water engines Etc. Yeah, that is a really interesting. Yeah, and speaking of first responders like I've just read this I don't know like too much about this and I didn't research it for this But I just want to point out that like I've heard in California

And maybe it was a different state or in other states, but they use you know inmate labor like prison Yeah, and they don't like paid for it, but like I mean, I mean, it's cool that they're like allowing them to like that They inmates are doing that and stuff but like Man, I hope they're good paid and paid our right for that because that That's if you're really risking a lot for that, you know Yeah, look I I'm gonna say it right now I believe that the fact that we have the incarceration numbers that we do in America is a problem Yes, I mean, that's a different exact yeah,, I don't know, like, it's going to be a big

tangent, but yes. I do believe that programs like that in California and any other state where you could look at someone and say, are you willing to be a volunteer firefighter and then joining a firefighter force once you're out of incarceration is a positive in that person's life, and that's not a problem. Exactly, because that gives them that skill and everything. Yeah, but like, you know, that's another, that's an, anything. All through than that, it's highly problematic

to say we're going to send you these individual ratings for you. That's kind of what I'm thinking, because like, I mean, I don't know if they're really getting them training more, so they just like, go in there, out of though. I, yeah, okay. I didn't look it up. But again, it does open the door for

someone to change their life upon rehabilitation, which is what the aim or at least what they say. I would like to see for sure. For sure. For sure. But anyways, costs though for the prison industrial. No, cause for fire suppression, and more than tripled over the last few decades, right? In 1994, about 200 million was spent on fire suppression. Now about 649 million was spent in 2022. So, okay, last year. And you got to wonder, too, like, is that an amalgam of light? We're not going to use asbestos. We're not going to do this.

Like, different advancements and inflation, right, the number of wildfires. It could be, or just, we're getting better at it. And, like, and also, it's getting worse. Well, and, like, look at at eggs post pandemic, I guess, is what I'm saying. Are people inflating the price? Maybe inflations, the wrong term there, but I'm saying between technological advancement

of flame-retardant chemicals. Exactly. And one that's another thing. What producers, the flame-retardant chemicals, are going to charge people now. Okay, so let's get, I didn't really have flame's get it. I didn't really like to play retarded chemicals either because like, that's, that is probably a problem. I don't know so much about that.

But like, because like, the whole point of like, well, not the whole point of controlling these fires, but one of these, one of the points of controlling the fires is to kind of mimic them, right? You want to like, limit it. Absolutely. And like, because like we've talked about, they're very beneficial for the plants.

And sometimes the animals too, like the animals use that as a way to kind of like reset the area, that's like their home, you know, like it's, I mean, a lot of animals die obviously during wildfires. But you know, so many animals do you think are like more endangered because of the increased number of fire fires? I'm sure like it's probably endangered many animals. I didn't look that up, but right. I'm sure it probably has Add it's not a better fit. I'm guaranteed to that. Yeah, but I mean, but that is something I did want to ask though too, but I we've talked about it so much and while it's still quasi-directed

to global warming and thus human involvement, like wildfires in and of it, themselves could be an endangerment. Well, I mean, okay, so yes, definitely it could. And in certain areas though, it helps though, like okay, if you control it, again, if you can have a controlled wildfire, and especially like let's say in like the Midwest

Like we're talking about not in our area specifically because we don't have too many prairies But like are you know the prairie lands in America? Like if you can burn and control it because a lot of the times if you just have a surface fire if you just like You know till a area around a circle around the area it won't spread like that's all you need it's like a couple feet of dirt and it will stop you know like it won't it just like yeah like I've seen like things on YouTube it's pretty cool. Earth don't burn. Yeah so like it's almost like the block you know that's one way of like I've seen like even videos of where like

there's a wildfire destroying these crops. And there's this farmer on this tractor and he's just trying to till, you know, like this long line, you know, it's another farmer, saving another farmer's land. Oh, yeah. No, no. Ah! And it worked, man.

Like it saved like hundreds of thousands of dollars of crops, you know, but yeah. It's a trench, bro, right? Yeah, but like when you burn these though, like if you. Yeah. But like, when you burn these, though, like if you can do a controlled burn, like sometimes you can burn off the invasive species, again, like these controlled birds can help you burn off the invasive species. The natural species are used to it. You know, they're used to these fires. So it gives them a foothold to let them grow better and it kills off the invasive species. So like, there is times and places,

I mean, obviously, I'm not saying go out and start a fire in your backyard. Do it. But like there is times and like places to do it if you know what you're doing. And like it can release the nutrients. Like when you burn it again, like all these nutrients are from the plant are going back into the ground and like it just gives it can be beneficial right but it just again out here we see it with ditches all that exactly and like that is like if we could do control fires of control burns to burn off this like extra vegetation that I was saying earlier and stuff like that we can reduce the amount of wildfires like they're just has to we have to do it in the right way, you know, but we have to,

obviously needs more money, you know, like that 650 million is not enough, but like, we need some billions here. I know, like, just, you know, it's money, money, for everything. But yeah, like, that's a, that's wildfire. So, man, like, it a it's very interesting subject I didn't know a lot like I knew it was beneficial but I didn't know how beneficial until I really started researching it it's pretty crazy well same and like that's that's one of the things is when you when you told it to me as wildfires and controlled burns the first thing that came into my mind and why I brought it up a minute ago was I've seen dudes on the side of farmland burning ditch banks my whole life, right? And like, as I knew the benefits of it and quasi knew like exactly how often it should

happen and things like that. But like, again, like I had said earlier, I also knew about like every year, Again, like I had said earlier, I also knew about like every year, you know, seasonally in California, in Las Vegas, in Oregon, Arizona, et cetera. and we've seen the effects on the planet and how these things that were kind of regular occurrences that sometimes could be problematic have become kind of clatic-closmic at times for the adjacent wildlife. I agree, man. And like, man, it's like, I don't know. I really don't, obviously, I don't have the answers,

but I feel like, at least just talking about it brings awareness. Even if you know, it only reaches, you know, our audience like, Yeah, I don't think you have the answers, but I think you have enough know how to sit there and put it into people's minds without any slant or, you know, profit margin or something like that in mind other than to inform that is like

Hyper beneficial because like exactly. Yeah, someone will either walk away with a better understanding Or someone is gonna walk away with a drive to try to change it and either one of those I think as wholesale just better in the situation like a large part of the reason why we started this and I'd love to do it to this day. Exactly. And if anything, I mean it's just, you know, Mark, you know, Fizz, Mark Sugar for your brain, like, like the name implies. And with that, we'd love to thank you for joining us here each and every week at the Brain Soto podcast. every week at the Brain Soda Podcast. Find us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and on Patreon. You can get early access to these episodes by one week.

Oh, wait! That's right, one whole week. Let us know what you thought of this or any episode. Some suggestions or questions you may have for Brad. I'm Kyle and we will see you again here soon. See ya. Blame me, blame! Hoo! Hoo! Man, you know, the Power Ragers, they lay the wildfire of my heart. Brain soda.