Like a proud papa, Sparks Fire Captain Joe Warner showed off the department's new fuel-fire-fighting machine. "It works like a champ...works great. We're excited to have it."

There's no such thing as a good fire. But there's nothing as challenging as a petroleum fire, like the overturned tanker fire we saw in Las Vegas just 2 months ago. Fuel fires, according to Capt. Warner, "put out a large amount of flame. Large, large amounts of smoke. The smoke is much thicker than a residential structure."

The danger resides as close as Victorian Square. The fuel farms sit behind the old warehouses alongside I-80 near dozens of businesses. Kinder Morgan director of operations James Giles told us that their company's tanks hold "About 2 million gallons of different products here. Diesel, jet fuel and gasoline." As you can imagine, fuel burns fast and hot. The new weapon is a foam pump apparatus that was placed on an old Sparks brush fire truck that was used to fight wildfires.

The science behind fighting petroleum fires involves the use of foam instead of water, for good reason. Foam, according to Acting Fire Chief Tom Garrison, "will spread out and suppress the vapors coming off the petroleum tank." The foam coats the fuel. That cuts off its contact with oxygen, stopping the combustion. But water can actually make a fuel fire worse. "Water sinks to the bottom. If it's really hot it'll expand and make the problem much worse. It's very similar to putting water on a grease fire in a kitchen."

The new petroleum firefighting weapon is already on the job, almost all of it paid for by Kinder Morgan Energy. The tab? Giles told us "Our cost was in excess of $150,000." Sparks Mayor Gino Martini told us, "The city put in very little money, and there's a partnership between Kinder Morgan and the city." Helping Sparks put out some economic fires too.