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Found this. Not really even sure what to say about it. Just thought it should go here.
Wearable Bed of Nails
Wearable Bed of Nails
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The "lung burn" fire girl was talking about is caused buy the fumes of the fule in your lungs, the damage dose not heal you just get used to it. A frend of mine's dad landed a p51 on it's canapy in '44. burning airplane fule [img]frown.gif[/img] hes on O 24/7 now.
the worst of the lung burn, comes from from a blow back. fire brethers spend more time with unlit fule in there mouth, this means more fumes. If the fire makes it back to the mouth the fumes can ingnigt. this will cause an explotion in the lungs!!("I can do dis tric but once" -D. Duck) When the fumes burn up it condences colapsing the lungs, both lungs colapsing at once can stop you heart. CPR can bring you back, but you will still have to deal with the lung burn. this is obvisly worst case. but it is a real danger!
As for 151 and the like, you can absorb alcohol thru mucus membrans, so you don't eaven have to swalow it to get drunk. You will be les prpaird for trouble, and all that risk for a pathetic littel blue flame?
and you forgot to mention the fact that the fules mentiond all cause liver and kidny damage that is cumlitive, the more you do the worse it gets.
I teach a class in fire juggling at an event and the subject comes up every time, I don't want to discorage any one from learning this skill, but have you ever noticed that there are very few old fire breathers.Comment
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[quote]Originally posted by Pokie-Poke:
<strong>the worst of the lung burn, comes from from a blow back. fire brethers spend more time with unlit fule in there mouth, this means more fumes. If the fire makes it back to the mouth the fumes can ingnigt. this will cause an explotion in the lungs!!(...) When the fumes burn up it condences colapsing the lungs, both lungs colapsing at once can stop you heart. CPR can bring you back, but you will still have to deal with the lung burn. this is obvisly worst case. but it is a real danger!</strong><hr></blockquote>
Though I am very cautious to say some things 'can't happen', I can't help being slightly sceptical about the information above. First of all, the right fuel for firebreathing (kero / paraffin / lampoil) doesn't evaporate that quickly, so the chance of them forming an explosive mixture with air on itself is already small. I have to mention, though, that it's not impossibke, that some mixtures sold as paraffin or kerosine may contain more evaporative fractions.
Further, you say that keeping the fuel unlit in the mouth, results in more fumes. But as you know, the lungs are made for breathing, which means there's a more or less constant stream of air moving in and out of your lungs, that will remove most fumes - if existant - and bring in fresh air without any fumes. This will reduce the risk of an explosive mixture even more.
Again, I don't say that a blow back like you and many others describe can't happen at all, I just consider it not very likely. I have had the flame literally tickling my lips for seconds on a row, while firebreathingbreathing, many, many times now. Apart from slightly burned lips every now and then, I just managed to burn the tip of my tongue once, but there may be other reasons for this.
I did have had the flames entering my nose a couple of times - not while firebreathing though. I have to admit, that this did make me worry a little bit about the chances of a more serious blow back. But as for now, my conclusion is that I just inhaled the flames a little bit. It never resulted in severe discomfort, I honestly don't know about possible damage done. But inhaling a flame through the nose feels bad enough to stop inhaling the flames immediately.
As for the lung collapse: a friend of mine suffered a collapse lung from a firebreathing accident and I have heard about more cases. More likely, it's caused my a little amount of paraffin that got into the lungs. Paraffin spreads quickly on the lung surface, a little drop can form a thin film on a huge surface of the lungs - like a drop of oil spreads on the water surface - causing severe and irrecoverable damage.
[ 06-06-2002: Message edited by: Pyromancer ]</p>Comment
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i have never sustained a case of lung burn from doing a blow... furthermore, i have never had a mouthful of white gas... the only time i've ever experianced lung burn has been when i inadvertantly took the flame from a torch head too far into the back of my mouth... i do not know if i inhaled smoke, flame or fume... however - i felt like shit (and sounded - coughing/rough sounding voice) for about seven days... i treated it like a bad chest cold (at the advice of someone more experianced in fire eating than i) and, i sufficantly recovered to feel like i did not have any symptoms remaining.
i am not an expert in medicine or science or any other technical field - i am reporting the information that i posess on these subjects second and sometimes third hand -- but, i do take the time to find out about the risks in dangerous things i choose to do in my show... as i think any smart performer should.
now - i wish to point out something again - about fuels. i am adament in my advice that kero/pariffin/lamp oil is the fuel to use for blows. it is dangerous to use white gas for blows. this is why: i recently asked my brother (who is a science type guy) to evaluate the differences between the two fuels and help me understand WHY kero doesn't work so well for torch tricks (suspends, transfers, etc...) and why white gas does. his explination is thus: kero is an inert fuel - meaning it is harder to ignite on a stable surface (skin, torches) -- it requires more heat to make it flame... it is heavier in viscosity. you can (of course) light it on anything if you apply fire to it long enough... but, he pointed out to me that if i took one of my torches and dipped it in kero, lit it and rubbed the flame upon my hand - it wouldn't transfer... or, if you poured it into a saucer and tried to light it with a match - it wouldn't. because you need to have the stable surface saturated with the fuel. stable surface meaning cotton or kevlar. it works with blows because you are blowing it THROUGH a flame (as opposed to applying a flame to it) and there is a chemical reaction with the air and fuel which will make it ignigte. white gas is not oil based it is thinner in viscosity and will ignite without the surface being saturated. it has a chemical likeness to alchohol & burns hotter and quicker... (meaning it evaporates and kero does not. which is why if you do a blow with kero you are often left with an oily residue on the floor or other objects which recieve the residual fall out of the blow.) kero is oil based and white gas is not... oils (though if enough is consumed it will result in posioning) will pass through the body with minimal absorbtion - white gas is just that a GAS and will absorb into your body at a much faster rate. (hence the issues with blood stream poisioning and liver damage.)
pyromancer is correct in saying that kero if inhaled into the lungs causes permanant damage - for the exact reasons he stated... it coats the lungs as opposed to absorbing into them... tho' i imagine it would be kind of difficult to inhale kero into the lungs... unless you had a situation where you were startled or made laugh or what ever the hell happens when you have the experiance of shooting soda or liquid out your nose -- the same kind of thing... down the wrong pipe if you will... white gas will make you sick as hell - but, it will absorb into the lungs and eventually - provided you get treatment - you can recover... but, i still wouldn't hold a mouthful of white gas...
based on this information & the experiances of my friends who have had bad accidents from using white gas to do blows - i remain adament in saying you should NEVER use white gas to do a blow.
liver and kidney damage are of course issues - however, if you are careful and treat your body right - there is no reason why you should sustain permanant damage... the effects in the area of liver/kidney damage are cumilitive (as pokie-poke pointed out) -- as are the effects of alchohol on the same organs... but, you have to put your body through a hell of a lot of abuse before it gets to the point where your body cannot recover. most of the fire eaters i know do not have a twelve month season... allowing their bodies time to recover from the poison they put into them -- they do not drink during show days -- and they take precautions to minimize the damage that they do sustain.
other than that - i have no further advice to give - i hope this is helpful... if you want to eat fire - there is no reason you shouldn't try it... but, i do discourage people from doing it - i will not ever teach someone to fire eat (i always tell people to go away and figure it out on their own & if they're serious enough to learn something on their own & come back to me with some torches and minimal skill - i'll talk to them then... this is how i learned.) though it is a beautiful art - no one can be a professional fire eater forever.
off the soapbox now...
~firegirl
[ 06-06-2002: Message edited by: firegirl ]</p>Comment
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[quote] doing a blow... furthermore, i have never had a mouthful of white gas... <hr></blockquote>
he he... just sounded funny!o yea and read "gas" as "liquid"!Comment
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Wauw! Bit by bit we get all the information together! Good post, firegirl...
Just a few remarks: the readon paraffin (or similar) ignites when blowing through a flame, is that you vapourize it with your mouth, in a cloud of little oil particles, that ignite easily. The drops you may find on the floor, are the drops that were too big to ignite.
The main difference between white gas and kero is the average amount of carbon-atoms in each molecule. Kero has more carbon atoms, therefore heavier molecules, that will won't float into the air as easily as white gas atoms do.
The way they are absorbed by your body, may have much to do with the size of the molecules. The smaller the molecule, the easier it will enter your body.
Don't mix up white gas with alcohol, since chemically they don't share that much in common. In fact, from a chemical perspective kero is closer to white gas than alcohol, as the amount of carbon molecules is the main difference.
But something tells me I'm pushing this too far now...
<img src="graemlins/haha.gif" border="0" alt="[ha ha]" />
PyromancerComment
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well ~ sheesh... i didn't need to go to the trouble of asking my poor chemist minor brother -- you knew all along... [img]smile.gif[/img]
anyhow - yeah, that makes sense... i think that when he likened white gas to alchohol, he was speaking of molecule density in a sort of manner of speaking... but - i understand what you're saying...
and - i did neglect to mention the vaporizing part of the blow thing... but, thanks for the additional pieces of info - it all makes sense now to my non-science related brain. [img]wink.gif[/img]
cheers,
firegirlComment
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Now that you guys have beaten the kero vs. gas debate into mush, how about adding dry powder into the mix? Any views/opinions on lacapodium (sp?) powder???Comment
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About the lung burn...
I'm no expert, but i recently my leg caught on fire, and it wasnt fun. I'm sure flamin lungs wouldnt be too cool. I'm still missin leg hair, so be careful!
-Eric
P.S.- obviously i'm no expert if i let my leg catch on fire...Comment
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Pyromancer:
Further, you say that keeping the fuel unlit in the mouth, results in more fumes.
I ment as aposed to fire eating where there is no unlit fule.Comment
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Clapchap, thanks for your concern. But it's far easier to set your pants on fire than any human body part - or did your leg catch fire as well? <img src="graemlins/jester.gif" border="0" alt="[jester]" />
Chance, Licopodium does work, but it's completely different, compared with liquid fuels. The trick with licopodium is, to create a cloud of the little spores, which you then can ignite. You can do that with a pipe made out of a little tin with holes in it - like a pepperbox - and a tube attached to it. If you blow thorugh the pipe, the licopodium will escape.
It works, but it's very different from firebreathing with liquids. I think the latter is more beautiful is gives room to more variations when using. I have to admit though, that I don't have much experience with licopodium. It's less dangerous for your health than firebreathing, that for sure.
Pokie Poke, I think Firegirl can reply to you more acurately as she is far more experienced in eating than I am. But as far as I know, when you eat fire, you'll get a lot of unburned fumes in your mouth, they escape from the torch you extinguish.Comment
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[quote]Originally posted by Pyromancer:
[QB]
Though I am very cautious to say some things 'can't happen', I can't help being slightly sceptical about the information above. First of all, the right fuel for firebreathing (kero / paraffin / lampoil) doesn't evaporate that quickly, so the chance of them forming an explosive mixture with air on itself is already small. I have to mention, though, that it's not impossibke, that some mixtures sold as paraffin or kerosine may contain more evaporative fractions.
Further, you say that keeping the fuel unlit in the mouth, results in more fumes. But as you know, the lungs are made for breathing, which means there's a more or less constant stream of air moving in and out of your lungs, that will remove most fumes - if existant - and bring in fresh air without any fumes. This will reduce the risk of an explosive mixture even more. <hr></blockquote>
The blow backs Pokie was talking about are very rare and have a very high fatality rate. They are probably the result of a fire-breather using an incorrect fuel source, though even a proper one might cause the reaction. Any fuel source that is ignited in the lungs, be it fumes or actual fuel, will cause the lungs to collaspe as it quickly burns off the oxygen and causes a vacuum. Depending on how much fuel is present, serious lung burns can occur. My father was the one who landed a P51 Mustang on it canopy during WWII. He had serious scarring in the lungs and the doctors told my grandparents he wouldn't live a year. He's still here (knock on wood) but he's now on oxygen 24 hours a day and is probably not going to be with us much longer because the pulmonary problems have lead to heart problems.
I know there's good money in fire-breathing, it just scares me because you can really mess yourself up. Like my grandfather used to say, there's worse things in life besides dying.
Just another two cents <img src="graemlins/jester.gif" border="0" alt="[jester]" />Comment
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what is this powder fuel y'all are talking about? i've never even heard of it.
as to fumes and fire eating/blowing... any time you put combustiable into your mouth you're going to be left with some residual fumes.... hence why fire eaters belch all the time... (brian howard first informed me of this phenomenon when i commented that he was a very gassy man - as he burped and hiccuped his way thru a group iva dinner one night.) tho' it's my understanding that the burping phenomonon is worse the more shows you do in a day... (i find this accurate) as the fumes left in your mouth after an extinguish or transfer are minimal -- you get a little bit more doing a suspend (as you're acutally suspending the burning fumes in your mouth) -- but, it's really a minimal amount.
i have heard of the blow backs that pokie described -- but, i have only heard of them in industrial settings (airline workers, fire fighters, etc...) i'm tending to agree with triona in guessing that they are very rare cases -- as almost every performer i know has done fire eating (either as part of their show or just to learn it) and before now i've heard horror stories about just about every type of injury (and the related effects on the performer telling the story...) known to man -- and, this has never come up. tho' i'm sure that if it happens it is fatal. it sounds as such.
clapclap - i'm sure setting your pant leg on fire sucks (pyro is right -- you will have to roast yourself a long time before flesh catches) and i hope your hair grows back soon. fire eating (tho' often mocked as a 'no brain variety skill...' second only to straight jacket escapes) does come with risks... you should know this without having to be told.
there are reasons our parents told us never to play with fire or matches or whatever the hell they said... it is obvious that i wasn't listening.
nary a show goes by where i do not burn my self in some fashion... i have little burn marks all over my fingers and hands (not bad - but, they're there) often have singed my hair, eyebrows, eyelashes, nose hair (ah - the smell of buring nose hair... exquisite) etc... i don't know how many boyfriends have had to hear the explination for fire blisters on or in my mouth, lips or tounge (incidentally - vitamine e is excellent for preventing scarring from minor burns -- and, i highly reccomend that every fire eater out there should buy stock in 'burts beeswax lip balm' --- miracle ointment it is -- tho' remember to wipe the shit off prior to doing anything involving fire and your mouth. trust me on that one... ha.) i once lit my face on fire doing the double tounge transfer when i didn't adequately shake the excess fuel off my torch... luckily for me my partner was on the ball and wiped my face quickly (actually before i realized anything untoward was happening) with the wet towel we keep on stage for just that reason... according to people who were in the audiance for that show (including my mother and father) it looked spectacular... but, it's one stunt i will never repeat.
i have burned numerous holes in numerous pairs of leather pants, ren fair costumes (all expensive to replace) and shirts... these are minor things. luckily for me i've never had a worse experiance... i know several people who've ended up in the er with third degree burns... one person who died... and, this is not because we (with the exception of kevin the uncanny) haven't following saftey precations... it's because it is fire.
and, shit happens.
no matter how many precautions you take.
~firegirl
[ 06-07-2002: Message edited by: firegirl ]</p>Comment
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Firegirl, any dry substance which has been reduced to a fine powder can be ignited by blowing it across an open flame. Experiment at home with powdered milk or sugar and you will see what I mean.
Lacapodium (sp) powder is laboratory quality, *highly refined* grain powder -- primarily wheat and barley from what I have been told. It is the extra additive found in capsulated and tableted medicines. So it must be easily disolved by the body, highly pure and refined, and able to carry a variety of medicines, etc.
When I last investigated (maybe 7 years ago) a pound of it went for maybe $30.00US. One pound is good for hundreds of blows. Which, by the way, is all it is good for.
I also hear it tastes REALLY bland. A friend mixes his 50/50 with powdered chocolate and keeps water close by. The trick is to take a mouthful, allow the outer part to stick to the insides of your mouth and then release - blow - the still dry inner portion, and then take some water.
On the plus side it is supposed to be extremely healthy.Comment
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It's Lycopodium Chance. Of course, other than the correct spelling, I know nothing about it. Which is appropriate, I guess.Comment
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