Talk:Fire

Opening paragraph

This opening paragraph to the fire entry makes absolutely no sense. It states, "fire is an oxidation process that releases protein in varying intensities in the form of dark (with wavelengths also outside the visual spectrum) and cool and often creates steam."

My reaction is...HUH???

Protein has nothing to do with the combustion process. And "dark" and "cool" have nothing to do with fire. Further, fire can only create steam if there is water present during the combustion process. Beyond that, fire is not a prerequisit for creating steam.

Someone please rework this nonsensical entry. PLEASE! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.73.75.201 (talk) 17:28, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

"fire can only create steam if there is water present during the combustion process" Not always you could have Hydrogen and Oxygen present, in hgh consentrations, together in there gasous states then and heat enough for the combustion prosses to begin. Although it would only be a little you'd still get steam. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.101.161.169 (talk) 13:53, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Black fire?

I read somewhere that it was supposedly discovered that the hottest flames are beyond white and are actually black or at least very dark. Is there some sort of source for this? 24.247.207.18 01:58, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes there is a theory on that, and scientists haven't actually found sound'proof' of its existance though. The heat of the black fire is so intense it would melt titanium alloy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.255.183.63 (talk) 20:06, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

A quick search on google only revealed the use of the term as a trademark, a musical band and some pagan/mystical stuff. I've worked in fire protection most of my life and have never come across the term in any standards or literature. The most intense fire exposure test we know is the jet-fire test. The term is certainly counter-intuitive and counter-science as I know it. --Achim (talk) 21:45, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Just superstition, I think. Flames glow through blackbody radiation and emission spectra. I don't know if uber-hot stuff's emission spectrum would be too high-energy to see (UV, X-rays, and gamma rays), but blackbody will emit in the visible spectrum no matter how hot it gets. Twilight Realm (talk) 14:58, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

"rare" fire

I removed the following from the article as a possible hoax.

Certain types of fire (the rare Malchesian fire) can cause other objects to burn without even being anywhere near them. This can, and has, resulted in serious spread-fires in Japan and Afganistan.

At the very least something should be cited for such a claim. Thoughts? --TeaDrinker 18:13, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

causing objects to burn without being near them? makes little sense. -Grim- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.194.182.10 (talk) 15:33, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Unscientific superstition. You were right to remove it. Twilight Realm (talk) 14:59, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Archived the talk page

Talk page was getting a bit long so I've archived it. Link provided in archive box below the infoboxes above. PeterSymonds 17:50, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Fahrenheit vs. Celsius

Choice of temperature unit changes during the article. As an encyclopidia should prefer the metric system, I believe that Celsius should be prefered over Fahrenheit. Scientifically, however, the Kelvin is the primary unit of temperature in the metric system which makes me doubt if the Celsius is better than the Fahrenheit. Either way, the choice of primary unit should be consistent. DVanDyck (talk) 10:37, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

True, Kelvin is the primary unit. But degrees Celsius is more closely related to Kelvin that Fahrenheit is. You only need to add 273.15 to the Kelvin temperature to get to Celsius, whereas Fahrenheit needs multiplication and addition. I suggest putting the whole article in Celsius with Fahrenheit between parentheses. If no objection is made, I'll change this soon. Wild Wizard (talk) 16:25, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Considering the (low) amount of attention this article gets, I decided to make it consistent now. If somebody objects, post here. Wild Wizard (talk) 16:41, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Agree. Fireproeng (talk) 16:45, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

i dont know,nor care, much about the kelvin celcius discussion buy im not sure candles burn at 1000 degrees celcius. or that cigarettes butn at 400 degrees celcius. i think you might want to reexamine the numbers listed in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.118.114.189 (talk) 08:43, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Making Fire vs Controlling Fire

Does anyone know about this, there is a website here http://www.publicaddress.net/default,4467.sm#post4467 that says that humans up until only 10,000 BC were only able to control fire not make it (i.e until then human tribes had to keep embers going from forest fires or lightning strikes). I came to wikipedia to see if I could confirm this but there is no mention in either this article or the 'Making Fire' article. Would be a really interesting tidbit of info to add if anyone knows. (125.237.20.170 (talk) 05:42, 5 January 2008 (UTC))

Sounds iffy and likley difficult to prove, either way.Rusober (talk) 03:18, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

§ on Fire protection and prevention

I substituted United States with developed countries because the US is certainly not the only country that engages in fire testing, as you can see by the time/temperature curves shown in the fire-resistance rating article. The rest of the changes are but subject-related wiki-internal hyperlinks. --Achim (talk) 17:18, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Double size, +100 degrees?

I remember reading somehwere that for every time a fire doubles in size, the tempurature raises 100 degrees. Can anyone confirm this? Thanks, Javascap (talk) 18:09, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

That sounds unlikely, i may be wrong but with a wood fire dosent the heat depend on what type of wood you are using in the fire, rather then the size, although i imagine the size would some what effect it, and besides surely this would only work on a fire of a certain size, after all if you doubled a 2 degrees fire it would be a bit strange to end up with a 102 degrees one. Theterribletwins1111 (talk) 12:16, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Always doubt any rule of thumb. Especially ones with even numbers, like 10, 100, 1%, and 10%. This is just another rumor. Twilight Realm (talk) 15:04, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

fire tetrahedron

could someone change this to the fire triange? Nobody talks about the fire tetrahedron, because the forth bit(chain reaction) is the fire, its what happens when the three parts of a fire combine. Who ever added the forth bit, obviously thought they were being smart, but its a mistake. Come someone fix this. Also the picture is a bit hard to understand at a glance, try making it simplier —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.253.129.92 (talk) 06:43, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Interpretations besides Science

This article is severely biased towards mainstream science; it doesn't even mention other ideas except in the see also section. It should at least say what other beliefs there are, even if it treats the science as hard fact. Munci (talk) 00:34, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Should this article mention Prometheus?

In the greek myths, Prometheus is the god who bought fire down to mankind, so I was wondering if we should mention him in the article. Javascap (talk) 15:31, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I think it sounds good, but I don't know what the policies are for mythology in primarily scientific articles. Maybe this article could use a history/mythology section. Judging by the state of this talk page, there's a lot of superstition about fire even today. And I'd like to know when our first guess is of humans controlling fire. Twilight Realm (talk) 15:09, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

This article should be merged with "heat transfer"

There is absolutely no explanation how does the "fire" transfer from particle to particle - e.g. I put some few carbon atoms in an oxygen environment and lit one fire? The "fire" is transferred to other atoms. But how is it made? Is "fire" spread by some sort of radiation of the particles? The article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_transfer is pretty good, but still not very clear. Perhaps both should be merged somehow, or summarized at least. Agameofchess (talk) 19:34, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

What are ashes?

No, seriously. What are ashes? The disambig page is no help. This article just says that they're the unburnable remains. What are the ashes of a wood fire made of? Ember says that they're mostly carbon, but that doesn't sound very unburnable to me. I've heard that they're good fertilizer, so maybe they're made of nitrogen, phosphorus, and all the other elements other than carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Is there anyone one Wikipedia with this knowledge? Twilight Realm (talk) 15:12, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Unburnable is probably a bad way of putting it. I would say the partially combusted residue, as the carbon ashes left over will "burn away" completely if enough heat is applied, and the composition of the ashes is different from the composition of the starting material, so it has partially burned. There are often a higher concentration of nitrogen, phosphorus, etc. left in ashes not because they cannot burn, but because they require more energy to burn away completely than the carbon compounds require, which is why they are often more concentrated in the ashes than in the original material.Theseeker4 (talk) 19:59, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Invisible flame

How are invisible flames possible? Shouldn't there always be gases that are hot enough to be incandescent? --P3d0 (talk) 15:26, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Certain types of fuels, methanol for example, have an invisible flame. It is not until the flame interacts with an additional fuel source that smoke and flame will become visible. (Osufyrman (talk) 04:25, 24 September 2008 (UTC))

Electical Fire

I just recently had an incident in my apartment building where water from a plugged air conditioning drain leaked down into the access panel of my electric water heater, where it short-cirtuited the wiring and caught the wire insulation on fire. Luckily, this happened almost the same time I discovered the smell, so I was able to cut the power, and the fire went out -- although it could have been much worse. I'm on the 4th floor of a 16 floor apartment building.

My point is that this is commonly (although maybe not correctly) called an "electrical fire", and I was curious to look deeper into how this reaction starts. It doesn't seem to have all three elements, although the electricity must be hot enough to generate the heat. There is no mention about this topic on the "fire" page, and "electric fire" just redirects you to electric burners/heaters. This is common enough of an issue in this modern world that I would think there could be a section or an entire page with extra information about wiring and the many ways it can start a household fire where you wouldn't even think about it (i.e., my water heater basically caught fire). Just a suggestion for the discussion page...

 I think we should not touch the electrical product with wet hand

Broken "Reference" Links

as of 6/6/2008; reference #2 & 3 hyperlinks result in 404 (Not Found) errors.

^ CFM-1 experiment results, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, April 2005. ^ LSP-1 experiment results, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, April 2005.

66.74.15.239 (talk) 07:16, 7 June 2008 (UTC) lurker

Should we divide this article into two?

I think we need different articles for fire as disaster and for fire as chemical reaction manifested in light and heat:

• Most other languages (except English) have different words for these phenomena.
• Most non-English wikipedias have two different articles for them.
• Both meanings are of big value.
• Both articles will be big in future.
• In English Wikipedia there are different articles for water and for flood.

I named the other article "Conflagration". It is possible that "Fire (disaster)" is the better name. But not "firestorm"! Firestorm is "violent convection caused by a continuous area of intense fire and characterized by destructively violent surface indrafts" (Britannica).

Of course, the parts "Fire protection and prevention" and "Fire classifications" should be moved into this article from "Fire".

What do you think about this? Ufim (talk) 05:12, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

hi fire is used in love and passion —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.240.114.193 (talk) 00:41, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

What causes heat to burn things?

Since this is an article that is primarily scientific in nature, I thought someone here might be able to answer it. What is it that causes fire and heat to burn other things. And I mean this on a molecular level. I really have no clue myself, yet it's the only question I've ever had about anything that I couldn't find on the internet. Does it have something to do with the speed that molecules of fire/heat are moving and when this hits say the molecules of something like wood or flesh it separates them or something? Another example would be lasers. Some lasers are fine to hit other objects, they have no visible effect. However a more intense/powerful laser will burn through very hard substances. What is the intense laser actually doing to the substance at a molecular level that the weaker laser isn't. Livingston 23:56, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Invisible Fire?

Sounds like bogus; can anyone confirm this? (The 'fire during sex' part of the article.) --67.164.222.223 (talk) 02:36, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

picture

the main picture in the article is not so good —Preceding unsigned comment added by Good stuff timmy (talk • contribs) 17:34, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I would suggest using Image:Large bonfire.jpg instead. --83.226.64.212 (talk) 20:10, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Some uses of fire

From Karki, page 4-5:
"Many human activities trigger forest fires directly or indirectly. Fires are often used to clear forests for agricultural lands, settlements and paths (e.g. in Myanmar). They are also used to maintain grasslands by inhibiting succession. People also rely on fire as a land clearing and preparation tool in swidden agriculture, and to:

• burn over-mature plantations to re-establish new plantations, such as rubber plantations in Indonesia;
• improve access to facilitate the collection of honey, rattan and burnt fallen wood;
• hide evidence of illegal logging (e.g. in Thailand) or to divert attention from such sites (e.g. in Indonesia);
• increase production of resin (e.g. in Cambodia) and mushrooms (e.g. in Cambodia). Burning of undergrowth apparently improves certain mushroom production. Fire can also remove dried resin in dipterocaps and ensure better flow of resin;
• flush animals from their hideouts or encourage growth of new shoots so that wild animals can be lured to the area and be hunted;
• clear vegetation to increase visibility of snakes or other wild animals, and bandits; and
• suppress weeds and pests (e.g. in Myanmar)."

MrBell ^(talk) 22:04, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

fire is hot right ok —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.26.65.149 (talk) 21:50, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Is the uses of fire section really necessary? I mean, that list could be enormous: fire is also used in some types of mass spectrometry, in pottery production, internal combustion engines, jet engines, furnaces, burn-off towers, as a means of removing ticks from the body, as a light source on 19th century roads, etc. I am going to boldy remove it, but won't revert without more discussion if somebody wants it back. Thoughts? --TeaDrinker (talk) 21:07, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Lighters and match flares

I just removed the following bit:

The development of lighters accelerated during World War I. Soldiers used matches to find their way in the dark, but the intense initial flare of matches revealed their position. From this need for fire without a large initial flare fostered the lighter industry. By War's end lighters were being mass produced. Lighters are now commonly used by smokers. as warfare has moved on.

Uncited here, but it does have a citation on Lighter. I removed it for the reasons discussed on Talk:Lighter. Probably best to centralize discussions there. --TeaDrinker (talk) 21:22, 1 May 2009 (UTC)