What happens if you pour boiling water on a fire?
In: Chemistry
It’ll help put the fire out.
The water will still both cool the burning materials that are hotter than 100C, and will smother the surfaces to deprive them of oxygen for combustion. There would be very little observed difference in its effectiveness vs cool water.
Water needs a **LOT** of energy to go from 100C liquid to 100C gas. If you took a block of ice at just above absolute zero and heated it all the way up to 100 degrees C liquid you’d need to put in almost twice as much energy again to turn that 100 degrees C water into 100 degrees C steam.
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