Why does burning produce more smoke after the fire has been put out?

Question

Why does burning produce more smoke after the fire has been put out?

In: Physics

Answer 1

You generally don’t burn solid or liquid materials, you burn the gases given off by solid or liquid materials. Once you snuff the flame, your fuel source is still hot enough to give off flammable gases for a while, which is what you’re seeing.

Those unburnt gases are typically more visible than the smoke from a flame because burning them would typically convert most of the material into CO2 and a little steam.