Fire Is Power

Fires start when a flammable or a combustible material, in combination with a sufficient
quantity of an oxidizer such as oxygen gas or another oxygen-rich compound (though nonoxygen oxidizers exist), is exposed to a source of heat or ambienttemperature above the flash
point for the fuel/oxidizer mix, and is able to sustain a rate of rapid oxidation that produces
a chain reaction. This is commonly called the fire tetrahedron. Fire cannot exist without all of
these elements in place and in the right proportions. For example, a flammable liquid will start
burning only if the fuel and oxygen are in the right proportions. Some fuel-oxygen mixes may
require a catalyst, a substance that is not consumed, when added, in any chemical reaction
during combustion, but which enables the reactants to combust more readily.
Once ignited, a chain reaction must take place whereby fires can sustain their own heat by
the further release of heat energy in the process of combustion and may propagate, provided
there is a continuous supply of an oxidizer and fuel.
If the oxidizer is oxygen from the surrounding air, the presence of a force of gravity, or of
some similar force caused by acceleration, is necessary to produce convection, which
removes combustion products and brings a supply of oxygen to the fire. Without gravity, a fire
rapidly surrounds itself with its own combustion products and non-oxidizing gases from the
air, which exclude oxygen and extinguish the fire. Because of this, the risk of fire in
a spacecraft is small when it is coasting in inertial flight.[6][7] Of course, this does not apply if
oxygen is supplied to the fire by some process other than thermal convection.
Fire can be extinguished by removing any one of the elements of the fire tetrahedron.
Consider a natural gas flame, such as from a stovetop burner. The fire can be extinguished by
any of the following:
turning off the gas supply, which removes the fuel source;
covering the flame completely, which smothers the flame as the combustion both uses the
available oxidizer (the oxygen in the air) and displaces it from the area around the flame with
CO2;
application of water, which removes heat from the fire faster than the fire can produce it
(similarly, blowing hard on a flame will displace the heat of the currently burning gas from its
fuel source, to the same end), or
application of a retardant chemical such as Halon to the flame, which retards the chemical
reaction itself until the rate of combustion is too slow to maintain the chain reaction.
In contrast, fire is intensified by increasing the overall rate of combustion. Methods to do this
include balancing the input of fuel and oxidizer to stoichiometricproportions, increasing fuel
and oxidizer input in this balanced mix, increasing the ambient temperature so the fire's own
heat is better able to sustain combustion, or providing a catalyst; a non-reactant medium in
which the fuel and oxidizer can more readily react.
Flame
Main article: Flame
See also: Flame test
A candle's flame
Photo of a fire taken with a 1/4000th of a second exposure
Fire is affected by gravity. Left: Flame on Earth; Right: Flame on ISS
A flame is a mixture of reacting gases and solids emitting visible, infrared, and
sometimes ultraviolet light, the frequency spectrum of which depends on the chemical
composition of the burning material and intermediate reaction products. In many cases, such
as the burning of organic matter, for example wood, or the incomplete combustion of
gas, incandescent solid particles called soot produce the familiar red-orange glow of 'fire'.
This light has a continuous spectrum. Complete combustion of gas has a dim blue color due to
the emission of single-wavelength radiation from various electron transitions in the excited
molecules formed in the flame. Usually oxygen is involved, but hydrogen burning
in chlorine also produces a flame, producing hydrogen chloride (HCl). Other possible
combinations producing flames, amongst many, are fluorine and hydrogen,

and hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide. Hydrogen and hydrazine/UDMHflames are similarly pale
blue, while burning boron and its compounds, evaluated in mid-20th century as a high energy
fuel for jet androcket engines, emits intense green flame, leading to its informal nickname of
"Green Dragon".
The glow of a flame is complex. Black-body radiation is emitted from soot, gas, and fuel
particles, though the soot particles are too small to behave like perfect blackbodies. There is
also photon emission by de-excited atoms and molecules in the gases. Much of the radiation
is emitted in the visible and infrared bands. The color depends on temperature for the blackbody radiation, and on chemical makeup for the emission spectra. The dominant color in a
flame changes with temperature. The photo of the forest fire in Canada is an excellent
example of this variation. Near the ground, where most burning is occurring, the fire is white,
the hottest color possible for organic material in general, or yellow. Above the yellow region,
the color changes to orange, which is cooler, then red, which is cooler still. Above the red
region, combustion no longer occurs, and the uncombusted carbon particles are visible as
black smoke.
The common distribution of a flame under normal gravity conditions depends on convection,
as soot tends to rise to the top of a general flame, as in a candle in normal gravity conditions,
making it yellow. In micro gravity or zero gravity,[8] such as an environment in outer space,
convection no longer occurs, and the flame becomes spherical, with a tendency to become
more blue and more efficient (although it may go out if not moved steadily, as the CO 2 from
combustion does not disperse as readily in micro gravity, and tends to smother the flame).
There are several possible explanations for this difference, of which the most likely is that the
temperature is sufficiently evenly distributed that soot is not formed and complete
combustion occurs.[9] Experiments by NASA reveal that diffusion flames in micro gravity allow
more soot to be completely oxidized after they are produced than diffusion flames on Earth,
because of a series of mechanisms that behave differently in micro gravity when compared to
normal gravity conditions.[10] These discoveries have potential applications in applied
science and industry, especially concerning fuel efficiency.
In combustion engines, various steps are taken to eliminate a flame. The method depends
mainly on whether the fuel is oil, wood, or a high-energy fuel such as jet fuel.
Flame temperatures
Temperatures of flames by appearance
It is true that objects at specific temperatures do radiate visible light. Objects whose surface
is at a temperature above approximately 400 C (752 F) will glow, emitting light at a color
that indicates the temperature of that surface. See the section on red heat for more about
this effect. It is a misconception that one can judge the temperature of a fire by the color of
its flames or the sparks in the flames. For many reasons, chemically and optically, these
colors may not match the red/orange/yellow/white heat temperatures on the chart. Barium
nitrate burns a bright green, for instance, and this is not present on the heat chart.

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Fires start when a flammable or a combustible material, in combination with a sufficient

Photo of a fire taken with a 1/4000th of a second exposure

Fire is affected by gravity. Left: Flame on Earth; Right: Flame on ISS

combinations producing flames, amongst many, are fluorine and hydrogen,

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