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?
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Fanning a fire provides it more oxygen and makes it larger. Stomping on it does the exact opposite – cuts off the supply of oxygen to the fuel (i.e. whatever is burning). But because the fire is hot, you often don’t want to leave your foot on whatever is flaming as it will melt the bottom of your shoe, even though that would be the most effective way to put out the fire. Thus the “stomp on it over and over” method was born.
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