Click here for our precautionary measures. What is Fire? How does Fire Spread? Chemicals and combustibles: When fire comes in contact with lab chemicals, household cleaners, paint and other chemicals, the fire burns hotter and more aggressively, encouraging it to spread. Other combustibles commonly found in the home include mattresses, sofa cushions, magazines, newspapers and various textiles. Open space: A building with limited interior structure burns much faster than one with hallways and closed doors.
Walls and doors trap the fire and prevent the flames and smoke from spreading. While the fire will eventually burn through the structure and continue to spread if left to its own devices, a fire fighting team has a much easier time dousing the flames in a building with more walls and doors, especially if those structures are built to withstand the heat and damage of a fire.
Construction materials: While a fire can burn through just about any modern building, fire resistive buildings made of concrete and steel curb the spread of fire better than wood frame homes. Ventilation: Buildings with central heating or air conditioning have ductwork, which provides a way for flames and smoke to spread between floors of a building, even when the structure is comprised primarily of concrete and steel. Water: In some cases, water is not the best fire extinguisher.
Then move on to denser woods, like oak. These take a lot more energy to start burning and will burn longer. When it gets going, a fire is like a living thing. It needs to be fed, sustained, and looked after, or it will die. You can find plenty of diagrams for building campfires: teepee designs , log cabin designs, elaborate plans for digging underground air-intake vents.
This rule comes from Bejan, who thought of it while watching a mound of charcoal ignite in his backyard grill. He realized when a fire is built into a pyramid shape, it will burn the hottest for the longest amount of time.
The extreme is to have a skinny, stick-like pile. That, too, is a bad design. Bejan published this finding in the journal Scientific Reports. To him, the universality of the fire shape is evidence that humans have an innate sense of physics. If a fire burned perfectly, the log would be completely torn down into carbon dioxide and water vapor.
But most fires do not burn perfectly. And as a result, wood smoke contains a lot of pollutants: chemicals like benzene and formaldehyde, as well as fine particles that can irritate lungs and eyes. As Brad Plumer has explained, indoor air pollution from wood smoke is the deadliest environmental hazard on the planet.
But the hotter a fire burns, the more these toxic chemicals can get broken down into simpler, safer ones. Burning dry wood also helps keep these pollutants to a minimum. Fine particles from the smoke and soot can be smaller than 2. Fine particles also can aggravate chronic heart and lung diseases — and even are linked to premature deaths in people with these conditions. The particles from wood smoke also can contribute to smog and haze.
In Minnesota, for instance, where recreational outdoor fires are popular, Herschberger says recreational wood smoke accounts for around 5 percent of all the fine particles released to the air. In terms of carbon dioxide emissions, wood smoke can be carbon neutral if the wood you burn is replaced by new growth.
On the small scale, fire is predictable. It makes fire on a mountainside absolutely magical, unpredictable. Like dark magic? With ongoing drought, climate change, and, ironically, a history of fire suppression , forest fires in the Western US have been growing bigger and more destructive over time.
A lot of these fires are started by lightning. But as Smokey the Bear has cried for decades, you can help prevent forest fires. A marshmallow is made up of gelatin and sugar. Sugar burns at around degrees Fahrenheit. A campfire can top more than 1, degrees. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower through understanding. Financial contributions from our readers are a critical part of supporting our resource-intensive work and help us keep our journalism free for all.
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today to help us keep our work free for all. Pistachios have so much natural oil and are so prone to heat-generating fat decomposition that the International Maritime Dangerous Goods Code regards them as dangerous.
Haystacks, compost heaps, and even piles of old newspapers and magazines can also burst into flame. A good reason to recycle Discover when you are done. Register or Log In.
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