[meteorite-list] Firefighters Think Maryland Brush Fire Started by Meteorite

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2016 17:20:02 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <201604260020.u3Q0K24j011721_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://wtop.com/prince-georges-county/2016/04/md-brush-fire-possibly-started-meteor/slide/2/

Firefighters think Md. brush fire could have been started by meteorite;
NASA not sold
By Rick Massimo
April 25, 2016

Firefighters haven't confirmed the cause yet, but when they finally
got the fire out, they found a crater with a rock at the bottom.

WASHINGTON - A big brush fire in Bowie, Maryland, took several hours
to put out, and while firefighters thought that might have been because
it was started by a meteorite, scientists make a convincing case the cause
was more earthly.

The fire started Sunday evening between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. in a wooded
area near Scarlett Oaks Terrace, the Bowie Volunteer Fire Department said.

Firefighters haven't confirmed the cause yet, but when they finally
got the fire out, they found a crater with a rock at the bottom.

They think flames from the rock ignited the trees and bushes in the area.
They left the rock there.

NASA, however, isn't buying it.

Mike Kelley, a program scientist in NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination
Office, tells WTOP that there's no way a meteorite caused the fire in
Bowie on Sunday evening.

Meteorites "on a small scale do not start fires," Kelley said. "They're
not hot enough when they reach the ground."

They heat up when they enter the atmosphere, but Kelley says that only
the outer millimeter or so heats up. By the time a meteorite hits the
ground, it's nowhere near hot enough to cause a fire.

As for the crater, Kelley said it looks like a pit dug in the woods, or
maybe an embankment, but it's not a meteorite impact crater, which he
described as "something that looks like it would have popped out of
the ground, like a splash."

He added that even though there's a rock at the bottom of the hole,
that's not particularly unusual.

"Yes, there's a rock at the bottom, but if you dig down four feet
to the left, will you see another rock?"

But the bottom line is, a meteorite wouldn't cause a fire unless it
was massive, Kelley said.

The Tunguska event, a blast more powerful than the first atomic bomb and
thought to have been started by a meteorite, didn't start a fire, though
it knocked down an estimated 80,000 trees. The KT impactor, said to have
led to the extinction of the dinosaurs, may have started a fire, Kelley
said, but it measured miles across.

"If something on that scale occurred in Maryland, we wouldn't be having
this conversation," Kelley said.
Received on Mon 25 Apr 2016 08:20:02 PM PDT