If you pulled out the smoke from a fire, would it burn hotter?
In: Physics
Smoke is basically what’s burns in a fire. Solids don’t burn, well they do but what really happens is they thermally decompose from heat, which releases gasses. This is how things can ignite from getting too hot, for example a house is on fire and the detahced building next to it is not. Despite the flames not psychically reaching the building that’s not on fire the heat is, the wood on the unburnt house will absorb the heat until it can’t get anymore then it starts decomposing and releases gasses. If these gasses get hot enough they’ll ignite even if no flames touch em.
It’s the gasses that burn. Smoke is these gasses as well as unburnt fire gasses, things and ash etc. too much smoke and the oxygen to fuel ratio gets too dense and the fire will get smothered. Not enough oxygen and the fire dwindles out.
You’ll notice a well developed campfire that’s hot has little to no smoke cos it’s hot enough to burn away all the gasses being released. At the beginning it’ll be smokey cos there’s not enough heat to ignite the gasses and they escape and disperse into the atmosphere before managing to ignite.
This is a firefighters perspective mind, so a scientist might be able to clarify all this in science terms I just know as much as my job needs me too
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