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   Easy: Willywutang & burning island
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Re: Easy: Willywutang & burning island  
« Reply #50 on: Nov 17th, 2003, 10:00pm »
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What could be more simple than backburning...
 
Perhaps he could exploit the rich deposits of amonium phosphates, then devise a delivery mechanism from bamboo which he could use to spray the fire. Thus saving himself and half the island.  Wink
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Re: Easy: Willywutang & burning island  
« Reply #51 on: Nov 27th, 2003, 9:50pm »
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I'm enjoying your riddles.  
The willywutang one is interesting.  The backfire is an obvious and probably most logical one.  However, I don't believe the riddle statement says where Willy is when the fire starts.  Perhaps it was his campfire that got away and he's already on that end of the island upwind of it.  Too easy, but isn't that what riddles often are?
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Re: Easy: Willywutang & burning island  
« Reply #52 on: Nov 27th, 2003, 10:05pm »
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You are right. It doesn't seem to say specifically that Willy is on the island, only that the island is burning and that Willy will be toast within ten hours. So, maybe we could just say that Willy should stay off the Island. Or he should stay away from toasters.  
 
Anyway, if the island is heavy forested, I wonder if backburning would work. He could call International Rescue. Then, the Thunderbirds could fly in and save him.
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Re: Easy: Willywutang & burning island  
« Reply #53 on: Dec 13th, 2003, 1:16am »
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well it seems to me that if the fire just started, and willy has been there all day hanging out, you know that all he has to do is put it out the way most guys write their names in the snow.......its moving at 1mph, and just started....so  
 
 
 
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Re: Easy: Willywutang & burning island  
« Reply #54 on: Dec 13th, 2003, 4:08am »
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I reckon he should slaughter a pig, cover his face with coloured clays, sharpen a stick at both ends, drop boulders on any distinctive sea-shells he finds, and then wait for the naval captain to show up just in time to save him from the consequences of his mistakes.
 
Or does that only work for choirboys?
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Re: Easy: Willywutang & burning island  
« Reply #55 on: Dec 16th, 2003, 9:04am »
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actually, I think that since the width of the island is small, that he could dig a trench that would fill with water and thus be a barrier between him and the fire.
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Re: Easy: Willywutang & burning island  
« Reply #56 on: Jan 18th, 2004, 11:27am »
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Why is everyone blaming those in favour of starting the second fire of the destruction of anything left in the island? The first fire would've burned all of the forest out, anyway.
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Re: Easy: Willywutang & burning island  
« Reply #57 on: Feb 7th, 2004, 5:36am »
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Backburning is so not the answer. Most of these answers aren't the answer now that I think about it. The conditions of the riddle are that:
 
1) Willy is on the island (could be anywhere, so worse case scenario is that he is at point B).
 
2) The island is covered in dense jungle/forest (no mention on beaches, easily diggable dirt, or any shallow wading pool areas).
 
3) The island is narrow (in comparison to 10 miles in length, narrow width could easily mean 1 mile wide).  
 
4) Willy "will" die in 10 hours when the fire crosses the island, at a speed of 1 mph (which may or may not be a constant speed).
 
5) Willy is apparently a normal man who is subject to the realities of life (such as getting tired).
 
6) Willy cannot be allowed to burn to death.
 
7) Why does everyone assume that Willy knows the island is on fire? It doesn't say that he's aware of the fire and now ready to jump into action. It just says that he's on the island and the island is on fire ... assuming he immediately sets about a plan in the first 10 seconds is a pretty hefty assumption.
 
Okay so the answers given were original, funny, interesting, but ultimately none hold any water. I'll explain:
 
Since we don't know where he starts on the island we have to allow for worst case scenario ... point B. Now at point B Willy is 10 miles from the fire. Ideally he would teleport to it, get a flaming stick, and teleport to a safe spot to light a second fire. Unfortunately our Willy has to actually move his legs. So Willy first needs to realize that there is a fire. This could take an unknown length of time like "x" minutes. Say he decides to try backburning. He first has to run through dense forest for nearly 10 miles minus how far the fire gets in the meantime. This could easily take an hour. But honestly we don't know how long the running would take. "x" minutes + "n" running time = how long to get to the fire (f). x + n = f. So how long is that? 2 hours? 3 hours? Who knows.  
 
Then Willy, exhausted from running, gets a stick and ignites it for use in the second fire. Now he has to run back the other way keeping the flaming stick burning and not accidentally setting the jungle on fire along the way. It would suck to have 8 or 9 fires going by the time he got to the backburning spot. Now since he doesn't have any way of measuring how far he ran away he doesn't know how far he is from the fire when he sets the second fire. Assuming the stick is still lit. If it goes out he has to run back to get it burning again. He also doesn't know how long it will take for the second fire to turn the first few yards of jungle into ash and then cool down enough for him to walk on. The first fire goes 1 mph, but that doesn't mean the second fire will.  
 
Also, we can't be entirely sure that the first fire is constant. Maybe it will burn slow at first, then blaze quickly through the center of the island, then slow down at the other end again. Depends on the vegetation, the wind, and the fire. So after wasting f time and running back to an unmeasurable point with flaming stick he has to successfully ignite a row of forest, it has to burn away from himself, it has to leave ash and cool down prior to fire A reaching him ... and even then he could die from smoke inhalation anyway. On paper it sounds logical (like all things do on paper) ... but in practice it's a plan that requires a lot of variables to fall into place. Fast runner, lots of stamina, knowledge of backburning techniques, luck, timing, and predicting the behavior of fire. My advice when using a plan like that is to consider just drowning yourself like a few people have said and saving your energy for the afterlife.
 
You can't rely on starting behind the fire at point A, since the riddle doesn't specify location. You can't rely on digging either. First off, some soil is so hard that you need to use special tools just to loosen the topsoil. Secondly, you'd be crazy to trust an aborigine shallow hole technique on an island that you don't know anything about. Third, if you dig a trench to stop the fire, what happens if the island is a mile wide? An object that is ten times longer than it is wide is still pretty narrow. A mile is a long way to dig without a shovel (or with one). And building a raft isn't something you can just "do" when you're born. That takes skill. Plus it might be hard cutting down trees with your fingernails and then carrying the heavy things down to the water only to realize you don't have any rope anyway.
 
Climbing a tree as one person said is risky. You could try drifting away on a log or wading in the water, but the water could be cold and you'd freeze to death. Actually, dying by drowning/freezing in the water or suicide (hanging self in tree perhaps) is the only thing that really satisfies the conditions of the riddle with constant results. Everything else requires a big "what if", amazing luck, or some sort of weird condition/preparation. So as far as I'm concerned the answer "must" be to just have him die some other way. In that sense it could be looked at as a trick question and a whole mountain of red herrings.  
 
However, since finding odd answers (even if they don't really work) is part of the fun I'll through in a couple that Willy could try ...
 
a) Just wait at point B on the very tip of the island. When the fire is right in front of Willy he can close his eyes and hope he doesn't die ... thus meeting the riddle requirement ... if he got lucky.
 
b) Willy can run screaming like a banshee at the wall of flames, plunge right through them and keep running. Then he can stop drop and roll in a pile of ash until he's burnt but not "to death". Then he can dehydrate to death in a puddle of his own charred flesh (he'd die of thirst before starvation, and after being flash boiled that wouldn't take long).  
 
c) Willy could train crabs or other marine life to harvest seashells from the bottom of the ocean floor and he could then use those shells to erect a wall across the island high enough that it forms an impenetrable barrier between the fire and himself.
 
d) He could always flag down a ufo.  
 
At any rate, backburning is the non-thinkers answer. They hear it, it seems to make sense, so they repeat it. And eventually it becomes the "answer". It's actually more far-fetched than say ... having him summon a pod of whales to blow water onto the fire. At least that just requires a leap in imagination. The backburning requires that the guy be a marathon runner, a forest ranger, a master strategist in fire emergency, and also omnipotent (I guess he just spider-senses the fire from 10 miles away and knows exactly what to do in a split second).
 
Heh, I should probably just stop thinking about it now.
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Re: Easy: Willywutang & burning island  
« Reply #58 on: Feb 8th, 2004, 7:41am »
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on Feb 7th, 2004, 5:36am, snaily wrote:
7) Why does everyone assume that Willy knows the island is on fire?
Because the opposite is less likely.
There is a two mile per hour wind, any halfdecent sized fire wouldn't be any problem to smell. Not to mention the smoke of a forest fire is a dead give away..
 
In either case, it doesn't matter.
What is asked is "what can willywu do to save himself from burning to death". He doesn't have to think up what to do, we do. So it doesn't matter how long it would take willy to figure out that there was a fire, nor how long it would take him to figure out what to do. It is up to us to figure out what he should do (and when).
If he ultimately can't/doesn't do what he has to do then that isn't our failure.
 
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At any rate, backburning is the non-thinkers answer. They hear it, it seems to make sense, so they repeat it. And eventually it becomes the "answer". It's actually more far-fetched than say ... having him summon a pod of whales to blow water onto the fire.
Why is it more far-fetched? It has actually worked in the past for numerous people, unlike trying to summon whales..
But if you were to ever find yourself in Willy's situation and want to use that as your only option, go a right head.. Personally I'd rather see if any of the other, more likely options pan out..
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Re: Easy: Willywutang & burning island  
« Reply #59 on: Feb 9th, 2004, 7:22am »
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Why does Willy have to run to set the second fire? The average human can walk at a steady 3-4 mph in good terrain for longer than the 10 hours the island will burn. OK, so the island isn't good terrain, but walking at a leisurely 2mph, Willy can get from point B to the fire and back again in less than 7 hours, which means he can then burn a relatively small section near point B and have around 3 hours for it to cool off - and that assumes he has no other means of starting a fire to hand. OK, so it does assume he spots the large clouds of smoke pretty quickly, but even if you wait the 5 hours for the smoke to reach him (assuming no diffusion) he still has an hour left by the time he walks from point B to the fire and back again. If he has a means of starting a fire to hand (if not, how did the first fire get started?), then he can start a fire near point B and have 5 hours for it to cool off.
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Re: Easy: Willywutang & burning island  
« Reply #60 on: Feb 9th, 2004, 7:29am »
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on Feb 9th, 2004, 7:22am, rmsgrey wrote:
(if not, how did the first fire get started?)
lightning.. Or maybe that dragon, though then Willy could go sit in one of the wells (not the seventh obviously, as it's guarded by the dragon, but the other six would work, well the first 5 as he needs a higher number well to counter the poisonous effect)..
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Re: Easy: Willywutang & burning island  
« Reply #61 on: Feb 9th, 2004, 9:25am »
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You're evil, towr, combining two of the longest threads in this forum like that! On a totally different topic, we need a devil smiley with a red face and horns Smiley
 
So if willywutang spills well water from the sixth well onto the fire, does the fire die from poison or asphyxiation?
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Re: Easy: Willywutang & burning island  
« Reply #62 on: Feb 10th, 2004, 9:35am »
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Okay so the question doesn't say that Willy needs to know anything since it's being asked to us, so forget Willy, he's just a metaphor to illustrate the riddle anyway. Let's say that we were on this island. What would we do? How would it happen?
 
*sidenote -- if the riddles on this site are just to be answered simply and forgotten then the administrator would include the answers and it would say "island of death" ... "backburn" and done and done. it's my opinion that the reason no answers are given is that we are supposed to think the riddles out as much as possible and not settle for the obvious kindergarten answer*
 
Now it's easy for someone to say set a second fire, based on the fact that they read about it somewhere in a magazine or something. But if you were on the island is that what you would have faith in? My counter-points:
 
1) You aren't in a desert or in widely spaced jungle ... you are in a dense forest. If you picture being 5-10 miles from a fire and you are standing under dense treecover, do you really think you'd notice a fire any time soon unless the smoke was blowing right into your face? If not then there goes a lot of time.
 
2) If the smoke is blowing into your face then how do you plan to walk up to the fire, get a stick lit, then walk away from the fire and stand around for a couple of hours waiting for the 2 fires to burn out in such a way as to create a dead zone that you can stand on ... without dying of smoke inhalation?
 
3) Even if you walk back to point B and start the second fire and somehow coax it towards point A against the wind, you still just manage to get two fires worth of smoke in your face.
 
4) Yes "some" people have backburned in real life. But "some" people have also trained whales to spit water. Ever been to a sea-world show? Orca's are whales and they can do all sorts of stupid tricks. I'm being facetious (like the whole dying "must" be the answer thingy), but the point is that backburning requires knowledge to do, not everyone can just do it on the spot. If the island is 1 mile wide and you have no experience backburning how do you guarantee or even theorize that you would know how to do it properly just based on reading that "some" people did it somewhere? Maybe telling Willy to do it makes it easier, since we don't truly care if he lives or dies, but if your spouse/mom/dad/etc were on the island would you yell down to them "JUST BACKBURN, IT'S SO EASY" and feel confident that it would work just like that?
 
5) If you just ignore the reality of the situation and chalk it up to being a riddle ... then all riddles become trivial. You could solve any riddle easily. The 100 prisoners/lightbulb one could be solved by saying "the prisoners should just memorize each other's scent, then rub the lightbulb in your armpit at your turn and from the scent we can tell who's been here". If you ignore the physical impossibility of it then it works perfectly. Same thing with the island of death. Ignore the reality of the situation and you could just have Willy/yourself use clothe-fulls of water and slash-and-burn agriculture techniques to carefully monitor and control the spread of the blaze in coordinated steps until the fire burns in on itself and runs out of fuel. If you ignore the fact that you have no clue what that really means or how to really do it then sure ... of course it would work. On paper.
 
Really all of the answers are wrong, including the ones that I gave. Willy/you are/is going to die on the island one way or the other. The only way you fail the riddle is if you let him/you burn to death. Setting a second fire doesn't really decrease that chance a whole lot. Anything that mentions water is probably slightly better since at least they are trying to get rid of fire, not start more (smoke is the number one cause of fire related deaths fyi).
 
Of course I could be terribly mistaken and deserve to be whipped and beaten ... but ah well ... can't be right all of the time.
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Re: Easy: Willywutang & burning island  
« Reply #63 on: Feb 10th, 2004, 9:42am »
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on Feb 10th, 2004, 9:35am, snaily wrote:
Now it's easy for someone to say set a second fire, based on the fact that they read about it somewhere in a magazine or something. But if you were on the island is that what you would have faith in?
Depends on the island.. I'd like to keep my options open, and at least consider it and not outright dismiss solutions that might work.
And personally, I can swim (though I'd rather stay dry)..
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Re: Easy: Willywutang & burning island  
« Reply #64 on: Feb 10th, 2004, 10:14am »
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on Feb 10th, 2004, 9:35am, snaily wrote:
1) You aren't in a desert or in widely spaced jungle ... you are in a dense forest. If you picture being 5-10 miles from a fire and you are standing under dense treecover, do you really think you'd notice a fire any time soon unless the smoke was blowing right into your face? If not then there goes a lot of time.
There are several way's to notice a fire, it gives light, it gives smoke, it makes noise, and it sucks. Not to mention any animals fleeing from it. I really don't think noticing the fire will be any problem.
Either way, this is about what to do when you do notice it, because if you're caught off guard it hardly matters what you ought to have done..
 
Quote:
2) If the smoke is blowing into your face then how do you plan to walk up to the fire, get a stick lit, then walk away from the fire and stand around for a couple of hours waiting for the 2 fires to burn out in such a way as to create a dead zone that you can stand on ... without dying of smoke inhalation?
That's a defeatist attitude.. Most people would at least try something to stay alive, even if the only option availible gives just a slim chance.
Also, neither fire has to be burned out to create a safe zone.. If you've got shoes it doesn't even need to cool down too much (it'll ruin your shoes perhaps, but that's the least of your worries)
 
Quote:
3) Even if you walk back to point B and start the second fire and somehow coax it towards point A against the wind, you still just manage to get two fires worth of smoke in your face.
The 'backburn'fire doesn't have to burn toward the other one, if it goes the other way that will work just as well. It depends mostly on which way the air moves (the original fire may suck hard enough to counter the wind, and thus suck the second fire towards it, otherwise it is likely to follw the wind)
 
Quote:
4) Yes "some" people have backburned in real life. But "some" people have also trained whales to spit water.
Not onto forrest fire. And they don't often have their whales handy when trapped on densily forrested island.  
Summoning them is yet another, unlikely, story..
 
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I'm being facetious (like the whole dying "must" be the answer thingy), but the point is that backburning requires knowledge to do, not everyone can just do it on the spot.
Ah, but Willy has infinite reasoning capability Tongue
 
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If the island is 1 mile wide and you have no experience backburning how do you guarantee or even theorize that you would know how to do it properly just based on reading that "some" people did it somewhere? Maybe telling Willy to do it makes it easier, since we don't truly care if he lives or dies, but if your spouse/mom/dad/etc were on the island would you yell down to them "JUST BACKBURN, IT'S SO EASY" and feel confident that it would work just like that?
I surely wouldn't tell them to try summoning a whale..
If I could yell at them I'd either be trapped on the island with them, in which case I'd evaluate my options myself (unles sthey had some usefull insights) Or otherwise I'd be on a boat or island not far off the coast. If I'm on a boat and haven't tried to rescue them I probably want them to die, so I wouldn't yell any helpfull advise to them. If I'm on another island slightly off the coast they could swim there (like me, they can swim). And otherwise I could drag them over one by one (If I haven't forgotten how to swim dragging someone else along, it's been a while)
 
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5) If you just ignore the reality of the situation and chalk it up to being a riddle ... then all riddles become trivial. You could solve any riddle easily. The 100 prisoners/lightbulb one could be solved by saying "the prisoners should just memorize each other's scent, then rub the lightbulb in your armpit at your turn and from the scent we can tell who's been here".
hehe.. that's a new one, Icarus should like that Tongue
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If you ignore the physical impossibility of it then it works perfectly. Same thing with the island of death. Ignore the reality of the situation and you could just have Willy/yourself use clothe-fulls of water and slash-and-burn agriculture techniques to carefully monitor and control the spread of the blaze in coordinated steps until the fire burns in on itself and runs out of fuel. If you ignore the fact that you have no clue what that really means or how to really do it then sure ... of course it would work. On paper.
You can go overboard by making it too abstract, or by making it too 'real'. Either way you'd do better to take a walk outside, since riddles are obviously not for you..
Most of the solutions given here can work depending on the situation. Slight deviations in the assumptions/situation makes them work, and in that sense the solutions correctly solve the riddle. There's no reason to dismiss them because they don't cover the whole range of possible situations.
 
Quote:
Really all of the answers are wrong, including the ones that I gave. Willy/you are/is going to die on the island one way or the other.
The longer he survives, the better the chance he will be rescued by a passing ship.. That's what most castaways wait for..
 
Quote:
The only way you fail the riddle is if you let him/you burn to death. Setting a second fire doesn't really decrease that chance a whole lot.
I disagree with that. And your arguments are far from convincing. Comparing it to summoning whales doesn't make your case any stronger either..
 
Quote:
Anything that mentions water is probably slightly better since at least they are trying to get rid of fire, not start more (smoke is the number one cause of fire related deaths fyi).
Most fire related deaths are inhouse, where smoke can't get away. In the open air it generally rises, as hot air tends to do..
And using water won't help much in a forest fire, unless you have a team of firefighters to back you up. You'd have to wet a large area to keep the fire from harming you (just heat-radiation can be fatal, it depends on how hot the fire is).
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Re: Easy: Willywutang & burning island  
« Reply #65 on: Feb 10th, 2004, 8:05pm »
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5) If you just ignore the reality of the situation and chalk it up to being a riddle ... then all riddles become trivial. You could solve any riddle easily. The 100 prisoners/lightbulb one could be solved by saying "the prisoners should just memorize each other's scent, then rub the lightbulb in your armpit at your turn and from the scent we can tell who's been here".

 
Quote:
hehe.. that's a new one, Icarus should like that

 
An interesting variant, but still a version of the "everybody leaves a marker" solution, so no, it is not really new (of course, Snaily was not claiming it was).
 
Really though, an "easy" puzzle is not meant to be analyzed to death, with every twist of possibility demanded for a solution. These are not exercises in creating contingency plans, but rather problems that stretch your creativity by setting up situations requiring thought beyond your usual paths. Easy puzzles are generally only slightly off the beaten path, or even on it for a number of people.
 
That is certainly the case here. The backfire solution is not something many people think of immediately, but is fairly quick to pick up for an imaginative thinker - thus the easy designation is well deserved. Snaily, your complaints about this solution really are senseless - there is no assumption that forest is so dense that Willy cannot move with reasonable speed through it. Willy also does not need to run clear back to the end of the island before setting his backfire. In fact all he needs is to move far enough from the original flame that the 2nd fire will move on before the original gets there (and enough that suction from the first flame does not pull the second back).
 
Such backfires are far from unknown - they are one of the main tools in the forest and field firefighter's arsenal (though in their case, they must take care that the backfire is always controlled - otherwise it simply speeds up the destruction).
 
You can overanalyze anything - and I think this definitely qualifies.
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Re: Easy: Willywutang & burning island  
« Reply #66 on: Feb 11th, 2004, 7:55am »
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on Feb 10th, 2004, 10:14am, towr wrote:
Most fire related deaths are inhouse, where smoke can't get away. In the open air it generally rises, as hot air tends to do.

In a large fire it does not matter, there is so much fumes, heat, smoke, etc. that if you even get close you still may suffocate (but you are still better off than in a house fire).
 
I've never been close to a forest fire but I've heard that you can feel the heat and smell the smoke as far as a mile away if it is a big fire.
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Re: Easy: Willywutang & burning island  
« Reply #67 on: Feb 19th, 2004, 2:37pm »
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Snaily had one good point in his rant, which was that you cannot just walk up the fire an pick up a flaming brand.  Unless you got to it when it was still tiny (and you could probably piss it out) you could not get that close.  Thankfully, however, a forest fire solves this problem for you by sending flaming bits far ahead of itself on the breeze.  You will find many small fires to poach off of before reaching the big blaze.
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Re: Easy: Willywutang & burning island  
« Reply #68 on: Aug 21st, 2004, 8:48pm »
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on Nov 17th, 2003, 10:00pm, Speaker wrote:
What could be more simple than backburning...
 
Perhaps he could exploit the rich deposits of amonium phosphates, then devise a delivery mechanism from bamboo which he could use to spray the fire. Thus saving himself and half the island.  Wink

 
Anybody else remembering the old MacGuyver show?
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Re: Easy: Willywutang & burning island  
« Reply #69 on: Aug 21st, 2004, 11:51pm »
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No, but I do remember how Gulliver put out the fire in Lilliput Grin
 
I thought I was at a board for puzzles, but this has turned out to be a lively story-board!
 
Much needed comic relief for mighty minds, I suppose. Cheesy
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Re: Easy: Willywutang & burning island  
« Reply #70 on: Aug 22nd, 2004, 5:39pm »
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Hello Grandpa
 
When you say comic relief for mighty minds, do you mean that they "might be minds." Just reflecting on your comment about our use of our sense of humor.  Cheesy
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Re: Easy: Willywutang & burning island  
« Reply #71 on: Aug 24th, 2004, 9:57pm »
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on Nov 17th, 2003, 10:00pm, Speaker wrote:
What could be more simple than backburning...
 
Perhaps he could exploit the rich deposits of amonium phosphates, then devise a delivery mechanism from bamboo which he could use to spray the fire. Thus saving himself and half the island.  Wink

 
 
on Aug 21st, 2004, 8:48pm, lilmisspj wrote:

 
Anybody else remembering the old MacGuyver show?

 
No, but I remember the Star Trek episode where Kirk defeated the Gorn with this. Off the top of my head, I believe the title had something to do with Tholians.
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Re: Easy: Willywutang & burning island  
« Reply #72 on: Aug 24th, 2004, 11:35pm »
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Yes, but Kirk made gunpowder. I figure you could find some guano (bat/bird poo) which is high in amonium phosphates and make some kind of fire extinguisher because fire extinguishers use amonium phosphate. Then spray it through a bamboo pipe.  
 
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Re: Easy: Willywutang & burning island  
« Reply #73 on: Oct 2nd, 2004, 6:59am »
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Heres my idea,  
 
There is lots of forest right? So Willy can just get a few logs and stuff and make a raft, he has 10 hours! When he makes the raft, he sets it out to see, but not too far. Make sure he has a paddle and sits and waits for the rest of the time, when the fire is finished, it stops. Willy can paddle back to shore and live on the island again!
 
SIMPLE!
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Re: Easy: Willywutang & burning island  
« Reply #74 on: Oct 12th, 2004, 5:46pm »
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Smiley Wink (the right answer)
it says heavily forested : meaning all he has to do is climb a tree wait for the fire to get 2 him then jump down to the ashes!!!!!
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