Just learned about the Kaprun disaster in which 155 people lost their lives when an underground train caught fire.

There were only 12 survivors all of whom followed the advice of a retired firefighter who advised them to run downhill through the flames in the rear of the train.

The steep incline of the tunnel acted as a blast furnace that sucked in fresh air from the low end and funneled toxic smoke to the high end.

Not sure how applicable this will be to anyone here, but I thought it a great example of how a little more widespread knowledge of how fire works could have saved a lot of lives.

Tl;dr fire bad but smoke worse. Get to fresh air.

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[–] 1 point 2 days ago

Actually yes. The thing is that falling onto the fire isn’t any better than the fire falling onto you. You always want to be below where the fire is because that’s where the fresh cool air is, and where the heat and smoke is not.

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