| Wildfire: Feel the Heat By Margi Blash July 27, 1999 Every year millions of acres of forest and wildlife areas go up in flames. Fire is natural  and one of the most powerful forces in nature but, thanks to the firefighters who risk their lives everyday to contain these blazes, most fires are put out without serious injury or loss of life. Discovery Pictures Giant Screen Experience presents "Wildfire: Feel the Heat." The audience gets a behind the scenes look at forest-firefighting from the beginning to the end. The film shows the techniques, technology and the firefighters themselves who risk their lives, everyday, to quell these infernos. The camera follows "smokejumpers" jumping off planes and aircraft dumping millions of gallons of water and fire-retardant onto wildfires. A 15-person crew took a mandatory firefighting training session, which included lectures, written tests, and fieldwork. The training was necessary for the safety of the crew but also helped with generating ideas for the film. Throughout the film the crew covered nearly a dozen wildfires that were burning in Idaho, Oregon, California, and New Wales, Australia. Four fires in California destroyed more than 32,000 acres and required 2,525 firefighters, 79 crews, 12 helicopters, 215 engines, 5 airtrankers, 12 bulldozers, 33 water trucks to put out. The four fires in Australia destroyed more than 2,531,750 acres. The IMAX format camera had to have specially designed mounts on the private government firefighting aircrafts. Many of the firefighters were taught how to use the camera because there wasn't enough room for everyone on the plane. While on the ground, the camera was surrounded with bulletproof glass and wrapped in protective gear to withstand the massive amounts of water and intense heat from the fire. The director commented that "IMAX is the most cumbersome, archaic, complicated and unreliable film format in the world. It's also the most beautiful, spectacular and stunning so you kind of have to trade one for the other.""To come up with the most extraordinary images possible," said Slee, "that as often as not meant putting the camera in an extraordinary place: actually into the fire, doused with retardant, driving at 50 miles per hour along a rough track or craning up 60 feet along the side of a tower so the audience gets the views the lookout gets."  Some of the firefighters who were in the movie commented on the reasons they became firefighters. Three of the fighters we talked to said that their fathers were also firefighters and used to watch and listen to their fathers when they came home. Long hours and heat are difficult for the firefighters, but they said that there isn't a better feeling than looking back and knowing they saved land and lives.In order to help yourself not be a victim of fire, make sure you control the brush around your home and if a fire is coming near, to take down anything flammable, such as drapes, from the windows. You can experience Wildfire again when it will become a motion simulated ride. The film is dedicated to the men and women who confront the fires everyday and in memory of the one's who we have lost. California Science Center IMAX Theatre California Museum of Science and Industry 700 State Dr, Los Angeles, CA 90037 Telephone: 213-744-7446 Fax: 213-744-2026 For more information on the Science Center go to www.casciencectr.org |