Or does the molecular structure change in a certain way once heated, and in turn can steam put out a fire.
In: Chemistry
Converting water to steam takes ~5-6 times as much energy as heating it from cold water or room temperature to the boiling point. The boiling water can absorb a bit less energy before it’s gone, but the difference isn’t that big. If you have enough water then you still have the other effect – removing the oxygen supply.
Pure steam can put our a fire, too, by displacing the oxygen (and potentially cooling the fire a bit, depending on its temperature – but not as efficient as water). But you’ll need a lot of steam to do so, and probably some closed room. Which is dangerous on its own.
To answer your second question, steam is great for putting out fires. A small amount of water will turn into a great deal of steam, which removes one of the four things a fire needs (heat, fuel, oxygen, and the chemical reaction). Firefighters routinely use short bursts of water to create steam to knock down a fire. Firefighters are careful, though, because making too much steam tends to hurt humans – steam goes through bunker gear.
Taking away the fuel source( the air, usually) is what puts out the fire. So yes, even boiling water would work. You’d still be smothering the fire from the air with the water
It would be marginally less effective, but not to any degree you might notice without testing in a lab. fire needs three things heat, oxygen, and fuel. tossing water on fire deprives fire of oxygen by displacing the air as a liquid and as water vapor, and it removes heat because it takes a very large amount of energy to heat water up. so even water at boiling can still absorb more heat and turn into steam completely removing two of the three things fire needs to exist. it honestly is less of a chemical reaction and more of a physical one, thru displacement and heat absorbtion, so the temperature of the water would not affect it to any noticable degree. ELI5 no it doesnt matter because water is really good at putting out most fires.
(note with oil and some other types of fire it wouldnt help no matter what temperature)
The primary way that water puts out fire is by absorbing the heat energy of the fire. Water has something called a high specific heat capacity. That means it takes a lot of energy to heat up water.
Since things tend towards temperature equilibrium, this means that the water will end up absorbing most of the heat energy out of the system.
So why does boiling water work? Well, boiling water is trying to turn into steam. That phase transition, from a liquid to a gas, is really hard, and takes a *lot* of energy. It takes more energy to actually perform that phase transition for water than it does to bring it up to that boiling point. That means that it still has a LOT of ability to absorb energy out of the system.
It would be a barely noticable difference. The energy required to turn a liquid into a gas is FAR more than the amount needed to heat it from 20C to 100C.
If you were to completely smother the fire, basically no difference.
If you were to drizzle it onto a burner log with embers at a high temperature it would be marginally less effective.
Despite what others say it would obviously qork a little worse but still work. Its still cutting off oxygen, and sure its taking some heat away but for the most part boiling water is only taking out one leg of fire triangle rather than two. (Heat, Fuel, Oxygen)
Yes. Water stops fire by starving it of oxygen. You can achieve the same effect with pretty much any non-flammable material that will cover the fire, be it sand, dirt, water, ect.
The water isn’t what extinguishes it. It’s the lack of oxygen to support the fire. Put water on it and there isn’t room for oxygen
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