Why does water on a damp object stop fire?

Question

Why does both cold water and boiling water stop a fire from being lit on an object? I understand that it does, but what exactly stops it?

In: Chemistry

Answer 1

If I remember correctly, heat will obviously turn water to steam. At the exact inflection point where this happens, there’s a huge energy requirement (that’s why steam burns are worse than boiling water burns).
so the heat energy is spent boiling the water.