Videos where people accidentally light something or themselves on fire, they often start hitting the flames with something, or rolling around on the ground. And it seems to work?
In my understanding, these actions are _very_ similar to what you do to make a fire _larger_, by fanning it and adding more oxygen to it. But in this case it seems to put the fire out?
What’s going on here?
In: 0
Fire is self-sustaining because of a feedback loop of heat. Heat makes chemical reactions easier and faster. The burning reaction gives off heat, which heats the unburned material until it is hot enough to react with oxygen in the air, and then that material burns and so on. When you stomp on part of a fire, you remove most of its access to oxygen in the air to react with, weakening or extinguishing that part of the fire. The material that was burning instantly starts cooling down, since it was where the heat was coming from.
If you stomp on enough parts of the fire fast enough, you’ll put out pieces of it faster than the remaining fire can heat them back up to burning temperature. Conversely, if you stomp one or twice and stop, you’ll see the fire creep back into that area.
If the material is flammable or hot enough, or the oxygen in the air is high enough, stomping may not work.
Latest Answers