Marine Corps Air Station-Yuma broke its own world record for the longest wall of fire at the Yuma Airshow in March and this week, Guinness World Records officially certified the achievement. KAWC’s Maya Springhawk Robnett reports…
MCAS-Yuma broke the record the first time in 2009 with a wall of fire over 10-thousand feet long. At this year’s Yuma Airshow in March, the new record-breaking wall was 16-thousand-46 and a half feet long and, on average, 130 feet high.
Greg McShane is the Yuma Airshow Coordinator.
“It really isn’t our record,” McShane says. “It’s a community record because clearly we could not have done it without the community’s support.”
The achievement was accomplished with the Tora Bomb Squad of the Commemorative Air Force and their pyrotechnic expertise, the Core Engineering Group, the Yuma County Airport Authority, and six-thousand-four-hundred gallons of unleaded 87 octane gasoline. And while a wall of fire doesn’t have any strategic use, McShane says it’s a worthwhile effort for the military installation…
“There is no significance to military tactics with a wall of fire,” McShane laughs. “Marines, like most people, like to see stuff being blown up. So, the bigger the boom the better!”