Mythbusters Blue Ice (Methane House Explosion)

A room filled with flammable gas can be made to explode by placing a magazine in a kitchen toaster and turning it on. Based on a scene in the film The Bourne Supremacy.
Episode 161 - Blue Ice

[@finnishperson6401]

i personally think that the way furniture suddenly burst in flames was ten times cooler than some random big boom-

[@nollie_ollie8358]

+Finnish Person Ikr it was epic! You could see the flame travel in a sphere igniting everything instantly.

[@Sammakko7]

Finnish Person vitun pelle

[@josgeerink1254]

IKR

[@DjZorlag]

Reminds me of nuclear bomb videos's initial stage when heat radiation ignites everything but shockwave is yet to come.

[@DjZorlag]

​@@JohnnyBGoode-xn9mo Nah, light (and other EMR) is million times faster than sound (shockwave speed pretty much). :)

[@MushVPeets]

That effect from the very high methane ratio lighting up (as seen from the in-room camera) was way better than most of the stuff I've seen built out of CGI... Certainly better than the Hollywood standard issue explosion.

[@tidan4575]

IKR! It was very cool! The way the methane ignited in slow-motion was very cool.

[@iivory8202]

It really looked like CGI, it was unreal

[@tyzinburg4169]

Not even you can clearly see this looks so fake😂

[@MCshadr217]

Structure wasn't properly sealed. If it were, trust me, it would have blown the house to bits. If you don't believe me, go look what happened to 29 miners in New Zealand at the Pike River disaster. Methane build up, one spark blew the entrance, another build up caused an even bigger explosion that destroyed the ventilation. Hollywood got their inspiration from somewhere. And that would be from the Mafia and other such organised crime groups at the time.

[@zsqduke]

@@MCshadr217 I agree. They need to measure the percentage of methane in the air. By the way, can a toaster ignite the air before it ignites the magazine? The coil gets pretty hot

[@billygowhoop]

I love seeing that slightly visible ball of flaming methane coming from the point of ignition. Seeing this stuff for real is truly dope.

[@jynx3693]

That was really cool. I enjoy seeing the "clearer" explosions. Not a lot of dust, dirt, debris. Just a flammable gas going boom. :P Miss Mythbusters.

[@m.s.l.7746]

An explosion is only as good as the forces trying to hold it in. This was obviously a weak structure. Do it in a sealed shipping container!

[@CoDZockerLP]

Do you know what a standard issued shipping container costs? Its not that easy. But i get what you mean, like try it in a bunker, i would guess it wouldnt do much there.

[@Thenotfunnyperson]

I agree.

[@Thenotfunnyperson]

@@CoDZockerLP Uses shipping containers are discarded after certain # ocean years. Not that expensive in the states.

[@lukesmith8896]

That's just a fragmentation grenade with extra steps

[@jimtaylor294]

@@lukesmith8896 True XD

[@simonwatts8338]

We get some natural gas explosions in homes in the UK as it's a mains supply. And believe me it blows big brick built houses to fragments, everything gone, bricks all seperated and blown away.

[@dphorgan]

YES. Happens here in the USA. Its complete destruction.

[@porpus99]

My guess is that the gas is at a much higher ratio. The Mythbusters only went high enough for detonation, no higher.

[@jackmcslay]

porpus99 They went for the ideal ratio based on the tests. Too much gas and there isn't enough oxygen for the flame. I've witnessed a gas explosion once myself and the result was quite similar to this one, it had enough force to blow away the weakest parts (in that case, the door and windows) while the overall structure remained intact, and it was an ideal scenario with a leak from an industrial-grade gas tank inside a building with doors and windows closed. If a methane explosion takes out a house, I don't think said house was structurally safe in first place.

[@joea1433]

Because the show house was very flimsy in comparison to a real building, it weakened sooner and the blast pressure dropped well below what it can build up to in a real house.

[@ckeith1987]

the last natural gas explosion that happened near me managed to blow the back end off a structurally sound 60 year old brick built house structurally damage the house next door and throw bricks 60 feet but it is incredibly rare you get an explosion from a gas leak.

[@Thors.hammer69420]

RIP, fans, your cool refreshing air will be missed.

[@BrandonCase]

Yep, heard “porn style” every time

[@sonicrocks53]

Brandon Case okay i was wondering if i was the only one 👍

[@thatdevilguy9811]

Ya ikr but is that what he said lmao

[@Stroddy]

@@thatdevilguy9811 he was saying “Bourne” like the movies

[@nmgreendragon7894]

"Jamie's *FAN* tastic method." 1:35

[@mikeunt7021]

a true Fart Fan setup! lol

[@loganm881]

The children in Africa could have eaten that house

[@DeGroteLaaf]

+Logan M A new myth to bust!

[@zhehui]

Logan M eat a house? Why not eat food

[@meganmusson]

Logan M please, just no

[@garciakman]

Gimchess haha epic you r/wooshed a cringe normie!!

[@chodeoriki4113]

garciakman it truly was epic. A moment for the histories.

[@Oddi0]

This was one of the most beautiful explosions I've ever seen on Mythbusters, even without a highspeed shot.

[@nibblesowo]

Adam’s maniacal laughter as the house detonated was beautiful.

[@Th0r2814]

the shockwave at the 3:27 mark is fantastic.

[@juliepreston3846]

it almost seems fake, natures frickin cool

[@SuperNovaJinckUFO]

I wanna see movies with more real explosions like that. It would add to the authenticity, and I'd honestly say that it's cooler to see than the just the typical hollywood explosion

[@michaelr9427]

wow, it almost looked fake

[@Mantis_Toboggan_TrashMan]

@xXx_spaghettilord420_xXx That's what I have always thought when I saw this. They couldn't make really big explosions at this point I think. So it's this weird middle ground of how the pressures change in the house.

[@racecitymoto1851]

The way the explosion blows the wall out and the air flows back in is brilliant, reminds me of a back draft. I believe the inflow of oxygen also collaped the roof

[@Thesamdeman22]

I wonder if the fact that the windows didnt break is as a result of the strength of the walls/roofing, i.e. maybe if they were stronger, the weaker parts (windows) would have given out.

[@BenjaminEsposti]

+Samdeman22 The windows are stronger than you may think! Glass is amazing!

[@Thesamdeman22]

+Benjamin “Ozias” Esposti Yeah, if I am correct then all that would need to happen is the windows be stronger than the surrounding walls.

[@rickcruz3382]

The weakest part is where it broke open it wasn't built to be a home or to last very long perhaps it was just a $h!tty jobsite office building/break room where The windows were just stronger than the quarter inch plywood wall's

[@Master-ls2op]

not to code building...

[@Guffy1990]

I think the reason Hollywood shows gas-fire explosions as a "BOOM" rather than this is because this looks so incredibly surreal, that people would think it was a poor attempt to do CGI. The fact there's a ball of barely visible fire, emanating from single point source, and everything just randomly catching fire for seemingly no reason just because methane or natural gas burns so cleanly, and without the "usual" fire characteristics of being red/orange/yellow/blue would seem so foreign to people, they'd maybe see it as interesting, but not expected, and remove them from any potential action. Gas is really cool.

[@tristanmccay2426]

Funny how when it explodes it sounds like the seismic charges from Star Wars Attack of the Clones

[@wumbosaurus9121]

BWWWAAAANNNGGG

[@BetaraptorLP]

This is so scary how it's not really a boom, but something happends in the middle and then suddenly everything is on fire out of nowhere...and it's over in two seconds, like the fire is seemingly conjured everywhere without a cause

[@novaorbitdragon]

All these out of country folks getting salty, one reason why we don't use screws, is that wood expands and contracts, the head of a screw would break off when wood expands. Plus in this video, the room wasn't built to code. Built flimsy.

[@Lol-lj1gk]

NovaOrbitDragon that’s what I was trying to say.

[@joeyknight8272]

Link?

[@vinnieg6161]

I miss this show so much they did everything I wanted to try myself

[@ValExperimenter]

There is a trick to getting fuel air explosions to happen quickly, it is called turbulence, this example showed a textbook spherical flamefront indicating no turbulence, putting the ignition source in a large dog kennel or a volume with a relatively small opening or openings would have increased the rate of flamefront growth considerably. Even a house with multiple rooms can greatly increase the peak rate of combustion.

[@Treblaine]

They did one do another gas explosion with turbulence and got a much more forceful explosion. Can't remember details of what myth or episode number.

[@Techischannel]

And thats why Smoking is Prohibited on Titan.

[@cheekybastard1018]

Techy LoL!

[@Double-R-Nothing]

With that logic, Thanos should've went up in purple flames the second Tony fired a rocket at him.

[@miles_1199]

Mr. Snarky not tat titan he’s talking about the moon of Saturn, titan

[@kyezaeta]

You cannot convince me that the editors didn't add in the 'Seismic-Charge' sound effect from star wars at 03:24

[@papa_blubs5267]

I thought the same thing

[@Correon28]

Finally someone who thinks the same. I thought I was going crazy...all I could hear with that explosion was Boba Fett's seismic mine from the movies and the game.

[@nshire]

I don't think they got the ratio right. Apparently some houses have been known to explode (very) violently when there are gas leaks.

[@centercannothold]

nealshireman they only made about 9& of methane in the air.

[@nshire]

yeah it looked like it was burning really lean

[@lohphat]

The flimsy walls allowed the gas pressure to dissipate quickly. If it were a proper house, the containment would have had a more violent result.

[@TonyYarusso]

I don’t know how much difference it makes, but anecdotally the really powerful house explosions I’ve heard of involved propane rather than methane, so that could be a big factor in addition to the ratio?

[@davidl3743]

The way everything just bursts into flames is awesome

[@benhislop1458]

It even puts itself out, even mor awesome

[@jetgamer0556]

I love how the gas looked like some sort of force field or something... Looked badass

[@traildude7538]

That was a shock wave; it persisted so long as the mix was even and the wave could stay symmetric.

[@kcanded]

I think Discovery should release all the episodes of Mythbusters that have not yet made it onto DVDs/Blue Ray. There are so many that are missing: Car Drop, Ultimate Mythbuster, Boarding a Plane, Mythbuster vs Jaws, for just a few. Just give us all the episodes, for pity's sake!

[@JonatasAdoM]

The explosion was still cinematic!

[@TheMeltedMan]

Gosh, I would watch this all the time as a kid.

[@confloashton3617]

This explosion was so cool you could see the detonation and track it with the naked eye, and it isn't the kind that shatters things into a million pieces it instantly roasts the inside of the apartment in a flash.

[@JohnFleshman]

I really loved watching the explosion propagate through the room. shame they didn't have more high speed cameras around.

[@samrose9798]

Dude wtf children could of eaten that house

[@BenjaminEsposti]

+Noahboy03 Von awesome dude LOL! Redefining the term "Natural Gas" since 2015! (After all, natural gas is methane, and methane comes out from "there" as well, among other gasses and chemical compounds)

[@noahenglish6654]

Benjamin Esposti lol

[@finthehuman3649]

I can't xD taking the jokes to a whole new level lmaoo

[@mjohnsimon1337]

If you listen closely, you can hear the Slave 1's seismic charges sound effect

[@playmobil4075]

I saw a house in the thumbnail and just knew they were going to blow it up.

[@morfeyy-]

"WE COULD NOT HAVE DONE THAT IF WE PLANNED"

[@Arpin_Lusene]

The combustion effect is so cool

[@kelsonmcnamee715]

thats what happens when you leave your gas stove on without lighting it and all you need to light it is to turn on a light or drop a metal fork...

[@MrSunrise-]

Or put your key in the front door when you come home. Folks I worked with lost a trailer like that. The door frame was much stronger than the wall (thank goodness!). The guy picked up some static and it discharged between the key and the lock. Parts of the front wall went out on either side of the door, leaving him holding a key in a lock on a door with a frame and no wall.

[@Psiberzerker]

The thing about the Bourne method is that it slowly filled up with gas, with an ignition source burning in the toaster. So, you're almost guaranteed to get the minimum (About 5% depending on barometric pressure, humidity...) fuel/air ratio that will burn, not the most efficient.

[@meowdy3490]

I think it's more amazing that they built that house in one day

[@joshuanaumowicz5115]

Bruh that explosion sounds like a seismic charge from Star Wars

[@ElHombreGato]

This is the strangest explosion I've ever seen

[@antonioluna68]

man you guys are awsome

[@cx-109a7]

Did anyone else here a seismic charge when the house blew up?

[@livingcorpse5664]

The explosion was more of a whoosh than a boom, so it was more 90% combustion with 10% explosion.

[@AF-sm5rt]

I was watching asmr and was recommended this.

[@ValdVincent]

And to think something like this once killed everyone on board a ship, and left no burn marks.

[@achimhanischdorfer3403]

You could really see the deflagaration front when they ignited the air/propane mixture.

[@bradameerbeg2154]

Even Jamie looked happy with that.

[@alexshank1414]

Mythbusters: How to destroy as much as possible, without someone dying. NEW TITLE: How can you die!

[@matbarn5735]

Looked like a movie scene With the flow of fire

[@musakhan3187]

Without context its just 2 guys watching and laughing at a house exploding and catching on fire

[@wickedthemadhatter9713]

That experiment actually taught me a lot about gas explosions and I'm glad for that

[@godfreywatson2515]

Were you...Gasses Up?

[@sebeq33]

In Bourne, the scene is set in at a super spy house, armed to the teeth and you can imagine that there are explosives in the apartment, at least grenades. The explosion may have occurred when it took those fires.

[@DeraldSny]

(Sees the BUSTED toast pop up at the end) Someone has too much time on their hands.

[@isaacfulton7731]

We just recently had a near by house completely leveled by a natural gas explosion. It was a foundation and shrapnel. Only.

[@derekwall200]

whoa you can actually watch the gas in the form of a blue flame race out from the ignition source. that may not have been a large boom but it'd be enough to destroy your home

[@ciderfan823]

I think that the reason that section of wall blew out might be due to it being where the gas hose entered, which might have caused a higher percentage of methane in that area.

[@Dizzz127]

Better then the movies, you can actually see the atmosphere inside the house ignite.

[@real_g0att467]

That orb was so cool

[@298samm]

so many people living on the streets and these guys just blowing up houses

[@Fenrir1398]

That was kind of terrifying...

[@bergmanoswell879]

9% methane? Who farted?!? "HULK STRONGEST!"

[@demijne9]

The explosion kinda sounds like a seismic charge from star wars

[@Mexx_Music]

MethBusters

[@Windows035]

at first, it looked like a sci-fi plasma grenade

[@kylemossi]

Makes you wonder why it took them an hour to say when 4 and 1/2 minutes will do

[@JAMxSkalla16]

I bet if the building was more secure, without just nailing holes with boards, there would be a bigger build up of pressure, causing a bigger release of energy, potentially bursting through the windows, which would be the weakest part of the structure

[@lordspyro5983]

sounded like boba fett's seismic charge

[@JasonMasters]

That was Jengo Fett. :) (Oops! My inner nerd is showing)

[@crimsonshade912]

It probably used the sound from methane exploding like this to make the sound. Or, the Mythbusters added the sound in during editing.

[@voltio231988]

Man what a blast

[@thaDjMauz]

that was magical

[@ob2kenobi388]

Reminds me of the nuke scene in Terminator 2

[@williamcomtois4297]

I didnt know they were talking about about Jason bourne until the end

[@GumbootZone]

They should also pump natural gas in there in an endless amount, just like what would happen in a real gas leak. It doesn't stop at "9%". Then if some kind of spark happens AFTER that, then yes, the house will blow up like a bomb. This has happened several times in houses with gas heating.

[@Cleansingflames]

If 9% was the ideal mixture, then why would they?

[@hexane360]

Natural gas won't explode at >15%, and the ideal explosion is at 9%. Explosions need both fuel and air in adequate quantities.

[@RandyLeftHandy]

They should have done it in a steel 50 foot trailer. That would probably be ridiculously dangerous though.

[@chris51330]

Why do I think I’d survive that

[@charlie_nolan]

This also shows how dangerous a natural gas leak can be

[@jbh759]

Now I want to see it done with acetylene

[@shawnm9570]

That is why I did not have to mow the back yard the next day.

[@Nubyrc]

When I fart I have learned the woosh one are worse then the bam ones

[@djolley61]

There was a natural gas explosion in our town that leveled the house. Why was that so much more powerful than this?

[@gangswagster]

Looked almost like CGI on some discovery channel special haha

[@jacobcarolan1172]

Should try acetylene and oxygen set to a neutral mixture. It would level that structure from considering what I’ve seen a trash bag full of the mix do.

[@joannaroy2932]

Looks so cool

[@mikeunt7021]

When you had Taco Bell the night before, and the next morning you are sitting on the throne and light your first cigarette....

[@chipotlemayor]

These guys have the best job in the world. And they even get paid for it.

[@morthond]

Chuck Norris was in that room and sneezed.

[@shawndubay3736]

Kinda makes you wonder if you're safe in a portable bathroom if someone lights a cigarette close by. If not that would really suck.

[@_-0-_0]

That should have been a brick/concrete house. It is the same as well known trick with adding explosives inside pipe - it amplifies, so if exterior is weak so the explosion same weak.

[@NAvideosDK]

born to be wild

[@Marz-px6vx]

It needed more

[@DRTMaverick]

I bet if you used liquified gas, had it decompress violently, and then detonated it, it'd blow the entire thing to pieces and shatter every piece of glass there.

[@royalkingdomcommando6379]

Shoot...I forgot to pay rent!

[@jwiz8586]

That mixture was way on the lean side, no where near 9%. Also the building was flimsy and there were not multiple rooms (baffle effect). Believe me real explosions that blow buildings to bits happen from natural gas all the time.

Sin embargo mencionan los peritos que la "chispa" de ignición pudo derivarse de un foco con el que el personal que daba mantenimiento a los pilotes usaba. Aquí si habría una contradicción cierto? por otra parte tengo entendido que una acumulación de metano provoca muerte por Asfixia, sin embargo ninguno de los que fallecieron fueron por esta causa. ¿Me puedes apoyar dilucidando esta cuestión?

[@jmr1068204]

3:35 Looks like a robot opening its mouth when the side blows out.

[@FrankBenlin]

Can anyone explain that concentric ball of energy before any visible flame?

[@daniellbondad6670]

How about an LPG tank?Block it's release valve and heat it up until it detonates.

[@Jackshaft]

What about all of the pictures online of houses blown to pieces from gas leaks?