Japan, as a country, is afraid of a lot of things. And with reason: geologically, as we’ve just seen in the last month, it’s vulnerable to just about anything the Earth can dish out. But one thing just as scary as anything Mother Nature can drop on Japan is fire.
Japan, being a country with shelters built largely out of paper, wood, and other flammable materials, burns a lot. In fact, during World War II, most Japanese cities were firebombed, killing thousands. So this is a country that is on the cutting edge of fighting fires.
The latest advancement is what looks like a bottle of Powerade, but is actually a fire-smothering grenade. You huck it at a fire, and the shell, made of fragile plastic, breaks, unleashing both a fire-extinguishing liquid agents, and chemicals that mix to release carbon dioxide and ammonia, which force out the oxygen and smother the flames.
It’s only designed for small fires, but small fires are how big fires start, and it pretty much kicks ass. Video of the anti-grenade in action after the jump.
[ via the Backdraft fans at Geekosystem ]