Talk:Fire/Archive 1

The following is an archived discussion of Fire. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's current talk page. No further edits should be made to this page.

Article Quality

This article, as writing goes, is really poorly put together. It jumps all over the place, and at times breaks down into short sentences which peel of facts without any attempt to make greater sense. In fact, in reading this I feel like I'm reading a 9th grade science report on fire. Surely we can do better. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.228.196.211 (talk) 00:20, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

History

I was looking for which human-like species invented fire and it's not here. how bout a history of fire section.

I'd just like to point out that fire was invented by spongebob. In the opening paragraph also the article states the humans 'discovered' fire - surely fire has always been arround (for example forsest fires) and what humans did is discover how to create fire at will?

Objectivity

I think that the first sentence itself is overly biased; who is to decide what is the most beautiful chemical phenomenon? Perhaps a section relating the theories that fire is alive (and the arguments against)? Anybody?

I agree. Objectivity may be impossible for anything with perception, but this is informational cross referancing. I am here to find out what we know, not what we feel. -Stormy Fairweather

Get over it dudes! This is a valuable resource for knowledge. As long as it is accurate, it shouldn't matter if there is a small suggestive oppinion inserted. - Yakult

'NO NEW PAGES!!!'NO NEW PAGES!!!

Merge with Flame?

I just cleaned up the Flame section after some "hacker" decided to trash it. After doing those edits I think that section doesnt really have much information and I think it should be merged here into Fire and have a redirect created appropriately. Theres never really a fire where there isn't a flame, or vise versa. Or at least i've never heard of any exception so if someone has any further information please let me know before I choose to merge it. Thanks! RobertDahlstrom 04:52, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

I support the idea. Charlie 08:20, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

If this artice retains specific information on flame itself, then it sounds like a good idea User:Sennacherib 11:51, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Merge Make sure to point out the difference between "fire" and "flame" but otherwise they look like the same article. Kerowyn 04:05, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

keep separate — A flame is just a component of a fire. The article "flame" should discuss things such as the chemical reactions involved and properties of flames, whereas "fire" should be an overview of all the different aspects relating to fire. And besides, since the merge-request, the article "flame" has been expanded and several interwiki links have been added. Ae-a 10:40, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Keep separate. As a subject, fire is a phenomenon of nature, which also has cultural and religious implications. (Zoros for example consider fire a sacred manifestation of God and do not practice cremation as "dirty" human flash cannot be touched by fire). A flame on the other hand is nothing more than a chemical reaction, the mechanics of which may only be entertaining for those, myself included, who use a duct tape to fix their eye glasses. Keep it separate. (Sorry...forgot to sign earlier.) Asknine 01:09, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Keep Separate ::: The flame article may need some work in order to separate it from the fire article, but they are two different, albeit closely related, topics. --Scorpios 09:52, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Fire with no flame? At one time I worked in a lab. that was investigating rick fires. In a small garden compost heap, decaying vegetable matter gets hot enough to sterilise seeds. In large hayrick that has not been properly dried, or has an excess of sugars, that heat and the insulating properties of the straw can lead to the hay getting completely charred, like charcoal without a flame, unless the rick is broken open and extra O2 gets in. How about a charcoal burner's clamp for that matter? JOhn PS It's "viCe versa" J.

The sun has a flame, it's not on fire. Depending on whats being burned the flame may not even be visible.

Oh my god, peoples. Let's get this straight: the sun is plasma.Freddie 23:20, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Merge --Phoenix Hacker 04:44, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Merge, but add flame as a distinct subsection.

keep seperate. Flame and fire are two different things. Some fires have flames, other do not (a smouldering fire does not have flames). A flame attained in a laboratory (or even with my ligher) is not a fire. Grein Grein 20:47, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

disambiguate. A flame, to me, is a fragment of a fire, but can be used for different descriptions. just disambiguate the two. - RED Nova

KEEP SEPARATE — Strongly so. I agree with the anonymous poster — BTW, please remember to sign comments with four tildes (~) — that fire is a phenomenon, while a flame is a chemical reaction. [[Briguy52748 16:44, 19 May 2006 (UTC)]]

KEEP SEPARATE - I believe that flame and fire are differnt things, as a fire is a state, process, or instance of combustion in which fuel or other material is ignited and combined with oxygen, giving off light, heat, and flame, while flame is burning gas or vapor, as from wood or coal, that is undergoing combustion; a portion of ignited gas or vapor. Therefore, something can be on fire, that is it is in the stae of cumbustion, while, flame is just ignited gas, or such. DIFFERENT THINGS! --Robin63 06:57, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Halon

Does Halon work on the fourth component of fire or it just cut off two of the original three components?

No fire extinguishers work on the fourth component of fire (ignition source), as a fire can continue burning even once it's removed. Halon works to eliminate the oxygen component of fire (and in to some extent I suppose the heat). Removing the fuel or the heat are two other common ways of putting out a fire. -Lommer | ^talk 05:47, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Might as well merge

Flame Glow

What mechanism causes flames to glow? I assume the wood, etc. glows because of blackbody radiation.

No, it is not blackbody radiation. Blackbody radiation assumes a state of thermal equilibrium which will not exist in the immediate context of highly exothermic reaction as take place in a flame. Much of the light generated by soot is probably properly characterized as "thermal radiation" but that is not synonymous with "blackbody radiation". As far as I have been able to determine, the exact mechanisms and physical details of firelight production are as yet not fully understood by science. Hetware 01:59, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Shouldn't flame be a disambiguation page?

Omegatron

I would think it would all be blackbody radiation. Anthony DiPierro 17:19, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

of what? gases i guess? hmm Omegatron 19:42, Feb 26, 2004 (UTC)

You are correct that blackbody radiation is the mechanism, but it is (primarily) liberated carbon molecules in the flame which are emmitting the light. As they spread and cool down, they stop glowing. It doesn't take many carbon molecules to produce this effect, which is why it happens even with no visible smoke. On the other hand, incomplete comustion releases more unbonded carbon than complete combustion, which is why those flames burn a brighter, cooler, orange whereas complete combustion usually produces a hotter blue flame. -Lommer 23:39, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

(I really think someone should put this explanation into the main article. This is exactly the information I was looking for! I'm not bold enough to do it myself however... - Meekohi)

Question

Why can't we move the bottom of the page to Fire (disambiguation)?? 66.245.74.77 01:13, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)

---

Wikipedia does the world a great service by allowing Professionals across disciplines to brainstorm. Thanks.

What is the physics of fire? That is, how can thermodynamics be explained through the lens of physics? We have a tendency to think in compartmented fields of focus, but in reality, it is all the same lens at different levels of magnification, different levels of integration [and in the bigger picture, different levels of embedded context]. Is fire a waveform? Is thermodynamics the changing of the resonant frequency of quark field states? Is combustion or flash point, the threshold at which an integrated atomic structure changes states due to acceleration of the resonant frequency of an integrated whole?

If quarks of atomic structure generate a field with the accumulation of mass, every integrated structure would have a different resonant frequency depending upon the density of the nucleuses and the geometric angles at which the atoms or compounds intersected -the angles at which the individual quark fields crossed, when they integrated.

All matter is really dynamic mass. All chemistry is really integrated physics. Tesla theorized the earth had a resonant frequency of 7.83 hertz and if we could interfere with that frequency at a given point, we could create an earthquake. Uncle Sam took his theories seriously and confisicated his patents under the National Security Act and now has a 10 Gigawatt Variable Frequency Beaming Platform on the North Slopes of Alaska that can reportedly do that very thing called HAARP [part of Star Wars]. There are two Websites for it-official and unofficial.

Physics and Chemistry Researchers [along with Geneticists, Molecular Biologists and the like] are very intelligent and very knowledgeable in a narrow field of focus. But they need the Engineers to help them put it together. They aren't taught to think to the integrated whole.

An Engineer would think like a diagnostic technician when viewing a given known in operation and trying to extract the hidden unknowns that enable the given known. They would integrate the whole and start extracting the interdependencies that enable it, staying anchored to the given known at all times to insure the conceptual thesis matches what is seen in operation. Reliability of data is the only governing criteria. Pure Science is pure logic. The Engineer wants to build a better mousetrap, so he/she wants to know exactly how this one works. [They don't care if their dead uncle, whom they didn't like, built it, only what interdependencies did he have to satisfy to do it? :-}]

This is just a point to ponder. Thermodynamics can be explained through the lens of Physics. The only thing that can't be explained through the lens of Physics is the context that drives the integrated whole. That has to be another paper. Have a great day!

• wtf? Dan100 23:59, Dec 22, 2004 (UTC)
  • dude, I just finished a degree in Physics and I still only half get what he's talking about SpitValve 23:26, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Well that's pretty sad then. A senior in High School should be able to comprehend that paragraph.

Anyways, While you have posed several questions that relate to the physics of fire, none of these can be included until proven by scientific analysis. I have looked and cannot find a cohesive theory that would easily condense to a wiki article. Wng z3r0 18:40, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

National fire code?

Moved from the article: These recommendations are usually developed into Government standards and codes, like the National Fire Code, which have drastically reduced the incidence of serious building fires since they were introduced over 400 years ago.

I couldn't find more information about this. What country does it refer to? Wmahan. 19:36, 2004 Apr 27 (UTC)

grease fires

Would we/Where would we add material on the importance of NOT attempting to put out a grease fire with water? Grease floats so water will not extinguish it, but the fire will boil the water which can aerosolize the grease resulting in a fireball.

There's a comment about not using water on petroleum fires but doesn't directly state the above hazard. RJFJR 02:33, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Music videos

I think some program on VH1 or MTV mentioned that 80+% of music videos feature fire in them. Not sure if this is true, but would be a fun factoid. —User:Mulad (talk) 01:33, Jan 6, 2005 (UTC)

History of fire?

When did man master fire? Something like this seems like a shoe-in for an article about fire. What early uses were made of fire? How did early man generate fire? - Vague | Rant 11:07, Feb 27, 2005 (UTC)

Its already there: "Prometheus is the Titan chiefly honored for stealing fire from the gods in the stalk of a fennel plant and giving it to mortals for their use." --67.172.10.82 09:06, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Problem: "Archaeology indicates that ancestors or relatives of modern humans might have controlled fire as early as 6,000 years ago. The Cradle of Humankind site has evidence for controlled fire from 6,000 to 5,000 years ago.[7]" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.31.9.183 (talk) 04:42, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

On Aug 20, IP address 74.54.18.210 changed the figures from 1 to 1.8 million years, down to 5 or 6 thousand. I'm changing it back. 192.94.94.105 10:33, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Image:Hand made fire stoker.jpg

I noticed that Image:Hand made fire stoker.jpg has been re-added to the article after I removed it. It doesn't show fire in any way, and belongs more appropriately at Fireplace poker. Why do people feel it should be included here? I find this page already picture-heavy, so I've removed it again for now. -Lommer | ^talk 20:50, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Removed external links

I removed the following links:

• The Fire Still Burns The Fire Of the Human Soul.
• www.hkc22.com/fireprotection.html
• thefireengineer.com Adventures in fire safety - The Fire Engineer and his team battle the forces of conflagration

kmccoy (talk) 11:34, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC) ya i agree it makes no sense...

Burninate

When does a fire related term, such as burninate become notable enough to warrant mention on this page? When does transient popular culture become an accepted descriptive term? ttogreh 27 Jul 2005

Hrm. Its hard to provide a concrete definition (though that would be very desirable). I removed burninate because I'd never heard of it and the only source was homestar runner which is not at all related to fire. I reasoned that an uncommon term used only in an unrelated fictional series doesn't warrant a mention on the fire page. If enough people think I'm wrong it should definitely be reinserted. -Lommer | ^talk 05:47, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Burning Man (and burninate by extension)

Seeing as Popular Culture is somewhat taboo on this page, could the Burning Man festival be placed in the "see also" section, or is that section overlong, or is Burning Man not significant enough? ttogreh 29 Jul 2005

I hope I haven't come across as anti-popular culture. I just find that an excessively long list under See Also tends to dilute its value too much. Perhaps the subsection "fire and religion" could be reworked into "fire and culture" and a reference to burning man could be incorporated there. As it stands right now I'd prefer it if >50% of the "See Also" items were either left unlinked or worked into article text. In the end though, it's important to remember that I alone do not dictate the shape of this page and if you feel strongly that burning man should be in "See Also", then put it there. -Lommer | ^talk 02:26, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Is the "Fire and Culture" section an appropriate place to put Burninate? Apparently an IP disagrees. Really now, I am being sincere; I believe burninate is worthy of mention on this page. If you disagree, say so, just don't excise it while anonymous and without explanation... --ttogreh 22:22, August 4, 2005 (UTC)

I agree, edits should be explained at least in the edit summary. For something like burninate which has already been discussed here, a note on the talk page is neccesary too. As for its placement on the page, I can't really think of a more appropriate place than fire and culture. -Lommer | ^talk 21:55, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Ok, this is the second time I have had to reinsert burninate after an unexplained, anonymous excision. I am a reasonable man, if you feel strongly that burninate does not belong here, explain why, and if you convince me, I will allow its excision. However, if you continue to remove it without explanation, I will continue to put it back.

--ttogreh 07:46, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

One Gene Nygaard Has decided that Burninate is unworthy. While I commend his decision to put a name to the edit, he has not explained his actions. Come on, now... --ttogreh 17:54, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

Look, this is getting a little out of hand here. The article is beginning to resemble a revert-war, and that means it could get protected. As an admin, I'd protect at a version which includes burninate, as ttogreh is the only person who has commented on the talk page besides me. I personally don't believe that burninate should be on the page (though I don't care strongly enough to remove it), but I agree that at this stage, reverts without explanation are not on. -Lommer | ^talk 00:34, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Ok, the song was a little over the top.--ttogreh 22:07, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

The song was way over the top. I'm still not thoroughly convinced that burninate has a place in this article. A recent reinsertion stated that it was no less worthy than the zoroastrians, prometheus, or the burning man festival, but I would strongly disagree. Zoroastrianism is an ancient religion (older than christianity) with hundreds of thousands of living followers around the world. Prometheus in a very prominent figure in greek mythology and an important part of the classical texts that are foundation of any literature study for the simple reason that almost the entirety of western literature can trace a relation to them. The Burning man festival, while perhaps less notable, draws tens of thousands of people annually (has run for 20 years) and is internationally known from extensive media coverage. There is simply no argument to be made that homestarrunner is as significant as the above subjects, even if it has been casually viewed casually by perhaps thousands of people in the english-speaking world for ten years. Homestar runner is indeed notable, but burninating is only one small facet of it that isn't central to it in any sense, so I would agrue that it's place on the fire page is tenuous at best. For comparison, fire is a/the principal tenet of promethues, the zoroastrian religion, and the burning man festival. Anyways, sorry if this has sounded rantish, please comment. -Lommer | ^talk 00:16, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Where does one draw the line? Bugs Bunny is a cultural icon, and he is sixty years old, or so. Scooby Doo is thirty years old. Homer Simpson is fifteen years old. All of these icons have significant episodes or gimmicks that involve fire. Indeed, I doubt there would be great hemming and hawing if I were to bring to light Bugs' use of lit matches under a foot, which he has done on a few occasions. Scooby Doo's encounter with fire related dragons or fire monsters would not cause an issue. Homer's odd habit of setting himself, his property, or his place of work on fire would not elicit much of a response.

Why then, does a dragon dedicated to burninating raise your ire? I sincerely suspect intellectual snobbery. --ttogreh 07:00, August 29, 2005 (UTC)

It's not meant as intellectual snobbery in any way, and actually yes, I would object to bugs bunny, Homer, and Scooby Doo. All are extremely notable, sure, but none of them have fire as a central theme. This page can only be so big and still be usable, there's no way we can include every object, concept, show, or cultural item that contains fire in the smallest way. Without fire, the burning man festival and the prometheus story would mean almost nothing. Without fire, Homestarrunner would go on and so would bugs bunny, Scooby Doo, and Homer Simpson. -Lommer | ^talk 22:07, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

What about Captain Planet? Apparently some one is a big fan. I swear, some people have no concept of propriety. Say what you will about Trogdor, but his fans ADD things to this page... --ttogreh 07:16, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

Huh? Sorry but I'm completely missing the captain planet reference - I don't see him mentioned anywhere on the fire page. -Lommer | ^talk 01:33, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

That foolish IP who excised the entire Article, he (I always think of vandals as male, sue me) also did the same for wind, water, earth, and heart. Those elements with fire combined are Captain Planet! You know, he's a hero. He is going to take pollution down to zero. Can anyone tell that I watch too many cartoons?--ttogreh 11:41, September 10, 2005 (UTC)

Ok, here we go again. I've finally gone ahead and reverted out the burninate/animation stuff, and I'll openly do so because my arguments against it have not been satisfactorily answered here (see 4 para's up). Beyond that, there is only one user (ttogreh) who inserts it, and by my count at least 5 or 6 people who make it clear they don't approve. So, that's why I've taken it out for now. -Lommer | ^talk 21:32, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

You stuffed shirt. Hopefully, I have adequately elucidated the reasons why fire and fiction should be mentioned together in the same article with my latest edits. --ttogreh 03:11, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Well that's a first (being called a stuffed shirt). Anyways, your edit summary said: "Film, animation, and computer animation are all important aspects of contemporary culture. Fire is an important aspect of film, animation, and computer animation." I don't think that fire is "an important aspect of film...", and even if it is, that's two links away from the original concept. How many gazillion things could we put on this page if we relied on such tenuous links as a criteria to merit inclusion? -Lommer | ^talk 05:31, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

P.S. I highly doubt that the two of us will resolve this issue if we're the only ones who ever post here, so I've submitted an RFC. Hopefully we'll get some more opinions. -Lommer | ^talk 05:31, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

I've come via RfC. I agree with what Lommer said. I would also suggest that the "fire and religion" material shows a more significant intersection than the "fire and pop culture" material. The postmodern nature of pop culture makes it all-inclusive; generally the pop-culture element of a thing is most significant when the thing owes much of its significance to pop culture (like Spam). I recommend restoring the section as "Fire and religion." -- Alan McBeth 17:48, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, I still feel that disdain for popular culture is an emotion that limits the acquisition of knowledge. Fire is a nearly ubiquitous phenomenon on this planet. We use it to power our cities, to clear our fields, and to fill our lungs with nicotine. I do not understand the line of thought that allows religion but not fiction. Everyone can get burned; why should we pretend that fire does not play a role in popular culture, or that popular culture has no place in an encyclopedia?--ttogreh 20:36, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Pop culture is very important. So is fire. They simply aren't of particular importance to each other. At least, this is my estimation. -- Alan McBeth 00:26, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Via RfC: I'm going to fall on the side of Lommer on this one. Ttogreth, not wanting an article to get swamped with more and more oblique references in popular culture is not distain; it is a practical mater of making a readable entry on a topic. I have moved several of these sections out of physics articles to ones of their own and they have florished there, by in large I believe, because the focus is now on that aspect rather than just an addendum to a science topic. I would concider moving Fire and culture to its own space with a link from here so that it may be expanded upon properly. DV8 2XL 22:30, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Via RfC: Including burninate is hilarious! Please include it. Kidding aside, it should not be in the article. It's pretty ridiculous to include it. I like the idea of a separate "fire and culture" article, but sadly, even then I don't think burninate would make it into that article, but maybe someone could sneak it in hehe. There's lots of things to talk about in a fire and culture article too. The burning bush, burning man, burnination, explosions (people's love of), firecrackers, trogdor, that Greek (or Roman?) myth about man been given fire from the gods, etc. --Ben 09:49, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Via RfC: Just zap the second paragraph of 'Fire, culture and religion'. I would hate to write an article on 'Fire and culture', but if such a thing were possible, cartoons would proportionally be a very small part. Just think how often fire has been used in film, literature, poetry, music and painting. And that is just Western culture. If you tried to summarise this mega-article into a paragraph for this general article on 'Fire', cartoons would merit something the size of a comma. JMcC 17:53, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Via RfC: Though I'm a big homestarrunner fan, I don't think burninating is important enough to put in the fire article. It would get too long if we included all important pop culture references to fire. For example, Seanbaby has said many very important and insightful things about making your own fireworks and blowing up Barbie and ET dolls. Sadly, though, Seanbaby just won't make the cut into an article as general as fire :) Why not make the fire and culture page? That sounds interesting. delldot | talk 17:13, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Ok, that's now five new opionions, so I'll move forward with this article. I'll follow JMcC's suggestion and completely zap the 2nd paragraph of 'Fire, culture and religion'. Lets consider this material gone (don't look at the history for ideas of how to expand that section) and just see where the wikipedia method takes us. -Lommer | ^talk 23:47, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Ugh. You are all philistines. While I am in the minority here, I must insist that while this article may not be the best place to put popular culture references, they are not, NOT inappropriate for an encyclopedia. Perhaps a "see also" link to a page dedicated to popular culture and fire? --ttogreh 07:29, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Fire as a weapon?

There's no real note in here on fire as a weapon -- perhaps it is worth incorporating? It is a pretty common use of the stuff -- from arson to Greek fire to napalm etc. Or maybe not. Anyway, just a thought I had when reading it. --Fastfission 23:22, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes it should be incorporated here. Care to do it? :-) -Lommer | ^talk 23:48, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Should such an incorporation be better suited under "Controlling Fire" or as its own section?--ttogreh 20:05, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

Sure, for now. One of things that puzzles me about this page is that I'm sure, deep down, that there is a MUCH better way to organize the content we have in this article, and I know there's so much that's missing. The only problem is that I have almost no idea what I think it should look like. -Lommer | ^talk 04:08, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, I placed a couple of sentences on fire as a weapon, mostly about Troy, Greek Fire, and napalm. If you think I left something out (which I did), add to it, please. --ttogreh 07:07, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

What about flamethrowers?

^^ That was me, and was my first discussion post. :D --Pelipar 18:30, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Fire as land management.

An IP was so kind as to add several long sentences on the use of fire in land management. I made some stylistic changes, but editor, I am not. I would hope that those of you that pay attention to this page could look at the IP's sentences, and change them as you see fit. Oh, and if you could do the same with my sentences on fire as a weapon, I would appreciate it. --ttogreh 02:11, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

Zoroastrianism & Fire

I edited the information concerning Zoroastrianism. Kudos to whoever put it there, but there were some minor inaccuracies and an unintentional POV problem. It is not possible to objectively ascertain the age of the fire at Yazd (not Yazda), though roughly a millennium would be more accurate than two. Also, there are two other fires which are more holy than Yazd in Zoroastrianism anyway, so it was uneeded I thought. I capitalized 'god'. I'm fine with it being left uncapitalized, but it could be considered offensive considering Holy Ghost is capitalized and Ahura Mazda is denegrated to just 'a god'. Interestingly they're similar in concept (every living thing has a "spark" of the divine within them in Zoroastrianism, GBd. 18:2[1]). As to details like the aforementioned I decided to abstain from adding it here, and instead created a link to Fire Temple. Nobody, of course, needs my permission to change anything back and I will admit the wording leaves something to be desired. But feel free to consult with me regarding anything Zoroastrian if you aren't sure about something. Khirad^Talk

On the issue of whether to capitalize "God" or not, I think the capitalized form of the word generally refers to the Judeo/Christian god whereas the lowercase version refers more to the general form of being, that is a diety. I don't think I explained that very well so I'll rephrase; God is generally the name of the Judeo/Christian diety; a god is a diety. I'm not sure how widely accepted this is, or how followers of Zoroastrianism prefer to have their diety refered to, so I leave it to you.--CallmeNiel 08:39, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

As far as the "God" or "god" thing goes, I've always been told, including a couple of courses involving heavy use of religious texts, that "God" is the Judeo-Christian diety and a proper noun as such. The lower case "god" refers to a diety in general. Anything beyond that is conventional (capitalizing "He" in reference to God for example), but "God" is always capitalized and generally assumed to be the Judeo-Christian god. Jay42 22:24, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

"Blaze" for a non-controlled fire

Should the word "blaze" be used for a non-controlled fire?

The answer is probably "no" since the word "blaze" describes only a (minor) characteristic of the burning process, i.e. the sudden bursting of the flame. Asknine 17:16, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Is fire plasma?

• Fire is plasma as the electrons are 'free' in the flame with ions, which is why the flame may be deflected by a charged rod. Lightening is a plasma as the air is ionised to enable the passage of electricity, as the electrons return to a lower energy state the emmit light( usually blue,[ high energy]) A flame is caused by the electrons being excited by the heat energy of the (exothermic) combustion recation returning to a (lower) energy shell and emmiting a photon, the basis of a flame test is that as certain things' electrons are ecited and return to the lower sheel they emmit specific frequency light photon's (depenatnt on the energy difference of the electron shells, and therefore the energy of the photon)82.138.217.145 10:16, 11 March 2006 (UTC)Wolfmankurd

There seems to be some back and forth arguing in the article on whether fire is a plasma. Let's see if we can figure it out once and write it down here.

Is it? Or is fire a combusting mixture of air and fuel? RJFJR 21:18, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

It seems to be both, as they are not mutually exclusive. As per Plasma (physics), a body of gas can be considered a plasma if any "significant" fraction of the gas molecules are ionized, even if that fraction is very low (1% or less).

A self-proclaimed plasma physicist (Art Carlson) wrote a comment in Talk:Plasma (physics) with several links showing that flame exhibits the characteristics of plasma, including the conduction of electricity:

• http://www.soteria.com/brown/docs/ehydro/speaker2.htm under "Flame Ionization", and
• http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/feb98/888372043.Ot.r.html

--Bk0 23:49, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't think you are going to solve the "what the heck is fire anyway?" question anytime soon :P. I'd leave it alone, but mention the plasma bit as an aside if it can be verified better. --Ben 09:51, 2 November 2005 (UTC) And I just re-read the introduction. It seems ok to me, but I can see the problem. I always thought plasma was just a special kind of fire anyway, not the other way around, so I would just leave out the part about plasma in the sentence "Due to being plasma, flames can conduct electricity" and just say that "flames can conduct electricity." I might even venture to say "Plasma is a special kind of fire." It's much easier to relate that way than the other way around. If my kid asked me "What's fire?" I don't think I would say "fire is like the gigantic chemical reaction in sector ZG of the delta quadrant." I think rather than referring to fire as special plasma it is way easier to refer to plasma as special fire. I don't think this contradicts anything and then you don't have to answer what fire is, you just treat it as the base phenomenon, instead of moving the base phenomenon to "plasma". Fire is relatable, since people know what it is, plasma is not, because plasma is weird.--Ben 09:58, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

errr... I mean "combusting plasma" is special fire. Regular plasma to me is just a special kind of gas. --Ben 07:50, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Ummm... I pondered this myself years ago. The thing was plasma is magnetic and can be controlled by magnets. Magnetism has no effect on fire--if it does it is too negligable to notice. And it's more flame is plasma. In a sense, acid can be considered a liquid fire--does anyone agree? DyslexicEditor 04:32, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Magnetism does have an effect on a flame, you just need magnets of MRI calibre (Google practical' plasma lightsabre' for lots of ideas about controlling flames with magnets). Daniel (☎) 10:27, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Fire is a plasma according to Wikipedia's article on plasma http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_%28physics%29 so I think someone should delete the sentence that says fire is not a plasma.

Controlled fire

The following paragraph is quoted from the article:

By the time of the Neolithic introduction of grain based agriculture, people the world over used fire as a tool in landscape management. These fires were typically controlled "cool fires," as opposed to uncontrolled "hot fires" that damage the soil. Such hot fires destroy plants and animals, and endanger communities. All too often this is a problem in the forests of today where traditional burning is prevented in order to encourage the growth of timber crops.

By using the phrase "all too often there is a problem in the forests of today", IMHO the paragraph suggests that human controlled fire in forests was a relevant factor in the management of forest wildfires in pre-historic times (e.g. in climate contexts). Given the number of people who existed then, and the amount of forest, I find that very hard to believe. I would revise it, but I'd rather that someone who worked on the article did, also because I could of course be totally wrong. TH 22:38, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I think prescribed forest fires have been neglected in the article, and the picture in the section gives the impression that all forest fires are uncontrollable and are in turn detrimental to forest flora and fauna. This in not necessarily the case. This negative connotation is incorrect and misleading, since forest fires are a very natural and beneficial part of the forest ecosystem. I think there should be a little bit more on this, just to make readers aware of that fact.

Basic article

I am concerned that this article, although nice and technically correct in its definition, will scare off younger wikipedians. Perhaps we can rephrase or precede sentences like "[fire is a] self-sustaining exothermic oxidation process of combustible gases ejected from a fuel" with something like "fire is a chemical reaction involving oxygen that produces energy"?

- sYndicate ^talk 22:36, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

If you'd like to rewrite that section in language that's a bit simpler you're welcome to go ahead. Keep in mind though that there is a simple english wikipedia, and that our goal here is not to create an infinitely accessible medium. However I'd agree that as it stands now, the article uses language which is inaccessible to many well-educated people who don't have a specialty in physics. So yeah, go ahead and good luck trying to find that tricky balance. -Lommer | [[User talk:Lommer|^talk]] 17:52, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Fire ecology

I added a "see also" link to Fire ecology in the science section. I wasn't entirely sure whether that was the right thing for me to do. On one hand, fire ecology is a stub, so people going there won't find all that much useful information. On the other hand, it's definitely relevant to an article on fire, and maybe someone going to fire ecology will be able to expand that article. Please revert me if you don't think the link should be there. Thanks. --Allen 19:41, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Random

Some of the information is uncited, and some ideas are left incomplete.

GFMC

Hi, I'm missing information about the Global Fire Monitoring Center (GFMC) (http://www.fire.uni-freiburg.de). Could someone take care about it? Scriberius 17:55, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Nomadic people?

However, fire is also used more directly; many nomadic peoples still use fire for cooking.

Um, I think lots of non-nomadic people use fire for cooking too... I think most restaurants, for example, use fire for cooking... - Eric 18:37, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Fire is Alive!

There are sevral articles disproving or attempting to prove that fire is a alive and I believe we should write a subtopic article on this theme.

The "Fire and religion" section would be a good place to write this. Ae-a 10:49, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Article needs adding to. DyslexicEditor 04:38, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I remember discussing this in science classes at high school. Fire exhibits most, if not all, of the characteristics of being alive. Namely; Respiration (needs oxygen), excretion (ash), reproduction (fire creates fire), nutrition (wood , coal, etc). I'm missing a few, but it was some years since high school. I also remember something about 'cellular activity', like a 'life form' would create/change organic cells; which fire does not. Cєlαя∂σяє^Talk 18:31, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Fire Triangle

Maybe one of the fire pictures should be replaced with the fire triangle. http://www.csmc.edu/6666.html or http://www2.rgu.ac.uk/hrforms/firesafetytraining/page4.html PrometheusX303 03:10, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree. The fire triangle is a very basic way to describe what factors contribute to creating fire. Many industries use it. User: Rdbrd82 14:20, 13 March 2006.

Splitting off the "Uncontrolled fire" section.

This section discusses the topic of uncontrolled fires which has enough scope to become an article of it's own. I've noticed that at least 10 other language wikipedias have separate articles for uncontrolled fires, such as de:Brand and fr:Incendie. I think that the reason there are somany on other language Wikipedias is that they have a separate word for "uncontrolled fire" in their own language. The problem remains, what to call this new article. Possible candidates are "Uncontrolled fire" and "Blaze" Ae-a 10:56, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm neutral about it, but I'm leaning slightly towards it. It's not a bad idea. Freddie 23:22, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the differrent classes either need to be in a section by themselves or included above. A "Class A" fire does not describe an "uncontrolled fire", it describes all fires. Rt66lt 19:06, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Looking at it, I would suggest merging the rest of it with the article on Firefighting.Rt66lt 19:07, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Either Keep it as it is or merge it to in part to Firefighting but keep appropate references. But I would not prefer to split it. Bdelisle 19:21, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Against splitting. Although I have to agree with Ae-a that the scope of the subject of uncontrolled fires is significant, simply making it into a separate article would be useless. The reason being is that this subject is a patchwork of a number of different subjects (each of with DOES in fact deserve to be presented in a separate article), including

• fire (natural disaster) (should describe fires as disaster events as they occur in urban, rural and natural environment, and also should list most devestating fires in history, such as the Great Chicago Fire)
• fire propagation (should describe how uncontrolled fires originate and spread)
• fire safety (should describe fire protection measures and techniques in various industries and situations, some of which, by the way, are not regulated by fire standards; this may include description of fire alarm and suppression systems)
• fire codes and standards (this needs to be moved from the "Fire safety" article and expanded to global coverage since model codes are used mainly in developed countries)
• fire prevention (should focus on educational aspect of fire safety, targeted at adults and children (Is there such a thing as "Wikipedia for kids"? If there isn't, it probably should be since it will be a better passtime for children than browsing porn sites.)
• etc.
• fire fighting
• fire service

It appears that most of these articles already exist, some are unfairly redirected to the "Fire safety" article, and some are in need of expansion and clean up. The section "Uncontrolled fire" in the Fire article should give a brief overview of uncontrolled fires and serve as a mini-portal for all related subjects. Asknine 17:06, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Against splitting - I don't believe it is a big enough subject to warrant it's own article. I believe it is adequtly covered in this and other articles (e.g fire-fighting, fire-safety). --Rehnn83 14:26, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Conflagration redirects to this page, which is not an efficient redirect for somebody wishing to research it. A separate section on Uncontrolled Fires would solve this. I appreciate that there are many smaller subcategories for this area, however, isn't the beauty of Wikipedia that related articles are linked when more detail is available? Rickythakrar 10:27, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

ash

I'm moving the following from the article to here:

This ash, as well as the smoke and other residue, are different compounds from the original ones.The ash that remains on trees after forest fires is sometimes used as a source of protein for wild animals.

The former seems trivially true to me. Ash does not contain protein so what an animal would do with ash needs to be discussed. Might be a source of minerals. RJFJR 01:20, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Car arson

An editor thinks that arson of cars is misleading or superfluous: it is not. See this page as an example. "The initiative targets car dumping "hot spots" and removes vehicles that are abandoned, have no value, are not taxed or have no registered owner. The aim is to remove the vehicles as quickly as possible to avoid them being set alight." Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (Be eudaimonic!) 23:32, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I think arson would be an appropriate addition to the Fire page. However, a picture standing alone that says 'A car on fire. Cars are sometimes set alight and abandoned in order for their owners to avoid paying for their removal.', puts an emphasis on car arson that is unwarranted.

Out of the millions of automobiles, are a substantial number being burnt by their owners at the end of the car's useful life? I have never heard of this as a common practice. Most people don't start a fire to dispose of a car. I would think that would be a serious crime. My biggest reason for desiring the wording be limited to only 'a car on fire' is that there is no context for the additional material. (Avanu) 23:50, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Presumably, the uploader knows the street culture where this occurred. If you follow the above link, you find that over 55% of car fires are due to arson of abandoned vehicles for this purpose. Most people don't, but most car fires are self-arsons. Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (Be eudaimonic!) 00:25, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Animated Gif?

This article has LOTS of pictures of fire. But it has no animated pictures of them. Why none? It could be real fire or a cartoon fake of fire.

And the mythology reference is too little. At least do better with links. And could acid be considered a at least metophorical version of fire in water?
DyslexicEditor 06:38, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Acid is not related to fire. Fire is combustion which is the rapid oxidation of a material. An acid has hydrogen ions and work off of that (sorry, its been a few years since I've had a chemistry class). We, as humans, experience both as burning, but they aren't the same.65.65.230.53 13:31, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Tester bare wikipedia: "Rød grød med fløde"

The fellow said 'metaphorical.' However, I agree...no, acid should not be included. Really, there's no point, and it's not like there's some sort of international meme connecting them. Jachra 07:07, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree. While acid is in no way similar to fire, I support an animation in the article. As a matter of fact, I request we have more animations in good ol' Wiki.Dark Fennec 06:16, 22 September 2006 (UTC)Dark Fennec

Easter fire?

An anonymous editor just added:

Additionally, a fire is used in the Roman Catholic Mass during the Easter Vigil.

Is there any truth to this (beyond the altar candle that is kept burning continuously throughout the year)?

(I vaguely remember something about burning last year's palms. Is this what this refers to?)

Atlant 12:07, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, they do burn the palms, and this is where the Ash Wednesday ashes come from. However, on the Easter Vigil, during the "service of Light" there will usually be a large bonfire which is the centre of attention while the priest goes through a short ritual, then everyone receives candles and lights them from the fire. This is explained in more detail on the Easter Vigil page. Nsmith 84 05:53, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

European fire classes (EN 2)

Where do the European fire classes E and F mentioned in the article come from?

European Standard EN 2:1992 "defines classes of fires according to the material undergoing combustion. In consequence it does not define a particular class of fire involving an electrical risk."

It "classifies in four categories the different kinds of fires which can be defined in terms of the nature of the fuel. Such a classification is particularly useful in the context of fire fighting by means of an extinguisher.

[...] The following designations are for the purpose of classifying fires of different natures and of simplifying spoken and written reference to them:

• Class A: fires involving solid materials, usually of an organic nature, in which combustion normally takes places with the formation of glowing embers.
• Class B: fires involving liquids or liquefiable solids.
• Class C: fires involving gases.
• Class D: fires involving metals."

Could anyone provide a reference for the other classes listed in the article? Markus Kuhn 14:44, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

I berleave that E and F are not part of the standard but have become "de facto" as these two cover sections that are also needed for classifing fires for extinguishing.

I notice that E states that it is a A or B class fire but I berleave that in fact a fire would be described as AE or BE fire.

--CAJ 17:55, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Fire/Flame Temperature

The standard SI notation for "degrees Celcius" is a degree symbol immediately followed by a capital C. The temperatures need to have this minor editing, but I don't know how to produce the degree symbol, a raised, small o.

David B. Benson 00:51, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

It's possible to use the superscript tag (because the subscript tag works, and I think the superscript tag will too), but I don't have anything much to add.^v^ [[User:orngjce223|my home page[[Talk:orngjce223|my talk page]]]] 23:06, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

The Temperature of candle file is reported as 760 (Celsius) without reference in this article, and as 1400 (Celsius) in Flame article (with reference). Which value is correct? SRG275 17:34, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Flame Color

Many common substances either contain or have a light coating of sodium. The sodium D emission lines produce the yellow color seen in wood fires, bunsen burners(?), etc. The sodium D lines are far from black body radiators.

I believe what I have written is correct, but I am not a physicist, so I am not going to attempt to add to this (quite good) essay on fire.

David B. Benson 00:53, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Is flame color more to do with the temperature and incadesance of the particals in the flame. Resulting in a color temperature aproxamitly the temperature of the flame.

--CAJ 17:55, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Please do some research on fire.

Alot of this article contradicts itself.

"Fire is simply glowing gas and other combustion materials such as carbon particles. It is not plasma, as it is not hot enough to reach such high ionization as is required of plasma (an 'electrically neutral, highly ionized gas composed of ions, electrons, and neutral particles')."

"Fire is extinguished when any of the elements of the so-called fire triangle—heat, oxygen, or fuel— are removed. The unburnable solid remains of a combustible material left after a fire are called ash."

Now when we use logic and common sense: If fire is not plasma then it cannot be plasmatic in nature.

So one of those statements is inccorect.

Since in highschools around the country, fire is being refered to as plasma, I suggest you change it.

Please sign your comments. Don't believe everything (anything) you're taught in school. Fire can be veiwed as behaving with plasmatic properties, but it definitly isn't plasma (ionised gas). Also how do these statements contradict each other? --Rehnn83 13:24, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

In the article on plasma, it says that fire is a partial plasma. Isn't that statement inconsistent with the statement that fire is not plasma in this article? I heard that the ionization of fire is what makes it glow. 71.121.5.65 01:03, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

POWER RANGER

Removed the image of the Power Ranger from the 'See also' section as it lowered the overall excellent tone of the article. MiAnRo 05:16, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism

I saw several instances of 'Sneaky Vandalism' by User:Saunders9000. It seems someone reverted the article faster than I could. Watch for continuing instances and please correct them lest this page become another popular article that falls prey to individuals that are too bored to make use of their time. --FK65 16:08, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Minor point: Life

A minor point somebody with more in-depth knowledge might want to add, perhaps as a trivia item or something else. Although it is not talked about often, in a general sense, life creates fire. The reality is that when the earth was first formed there was very little in the way of self-sustaining fires since there was no oxygen in the atmosphere. Fires as we mostly know them today only really became possible when there were enough plants to fill the atmosphere with oxygen. In some sense, therefore, the very thing the plants give us to exist (oxygen) also creates the constant danger (and benefit) of fire. --Mcorazao 23:34, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

A Flame Is Not Liquid

The "physics" and introductory sections of this article repeatedly refer to fire as a liquid. This appears to be a change from when it was said to be a plasma in earlier editions. A flame is a region of chemically reacting gases, hot enough to emit light. It's true that it's not a plasma, but it also is definitly not a liquid. The contributor who used the word "liquid" may have meant "fluid" instead. If thrue, that would be correct, but unnecessarily vague. I will change the instances of the word liquid in the article to make sure that flames are properly characterized as gas. Aerodave 21:18, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Plasma or no?

There appears to be a contradiction in the "Chemistry of fire" section:

Typical flames are just incandescent gas, and are not plasmas, as they are not hot enough to be sufficiently ionized.

then a paragraph or two later:

A flame is an exothermic, self-sustaining, oxidizing chemical reaction producing energy and glowing hot flame, of which a very small portion is plasma.

I can see that there has been debate about this, perhaps consultation with other encyclopedias may be the go? BenC7 12:45, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

If there is any degree of measurable ionization (even trace) the material can be called a plasma. The fact that flame is a plasma (which reportedly can conduct electricity) should be added back into this article. --Bk0 (Talk) 13:03, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Fire stats

Does anyone know the average number of fires a year in a school? Uptonogood 12:48, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Standardised Spellings

Just wanted to make everyone aware that I have now standardised the spellings on this page. There was a bit of a strange mix between British (ex: smoulder) and US (ex: color) spellings, so per Wikipedia Style Guidelines I have standardised as much as possible to British English standards. Also fixed an obvious spelling error. Please feel free to improve if you believe necessary. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.8.106.37 (talk) 04:36, 15 March 2007 (UTC).

"Fire in human history"

I see no reason for there to be a section on the history of fire in human society as a subsection of the lead. Therefore I propose it be made its own section in the body of the article. Objections? Goodnightmush^Talk 00:31, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Looks like someone went ahead and did so. That said, shouldn't the chemistry section of the article come first as this is an article about a chemical process. How it affects human should be after actually talking about what the subject of the article is. Goodnightmush^Talk 19:37, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Image

I think we nead anouther image. Maby a torch or somthing. Bluefire princess 18:22, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree. It's a good photograph, but it doesn't really show fire very well. I think the problem with it is the long exposure. I've got an image that could be better. I'll leave some time for discussion here and if consensus for a change is met I'll put it up. I'll take silence as tacit consent :) Alun 16:38, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Create light, heat?

Can light or heat be "created"? Probably "generated" or "released" could be better suiting words for the opening sentence.

N-alarm fire

I think the term "N-alarm fire" should be explained in this article. It is a common measurement used in the news. --208.120.169.109 02:26, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Common in the US, not anywhere else, no no, not a good idea in my opinion. Owain.davies 06:50, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's current talk page. No further edits should be made to this page.

Opening paragraph

This opening paragraph to the fire entry makes absolutely no sense. It states, "fire is an oxidation process that releases protein in varying intensities in the form of dark (with wavelengths also outside the visual spectrum) and cool and often creates steam."

My reaction is...HUH???

Protein has nothing to do with the combustion process. And "dark" and "cool" have nothing to do with fire. Further, fire can only create steam if there is water present during the combustion process. Beyond that, fire is not a prerequisit for creating steam.

Someone please rework this nonsensical entry. PLEASE! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.73.75.201 (talk) 17:28, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

"fire can only create steam if there is water present during the combustion process" Not always you could have Hydrogen and Oxygen present, in hgh consentrations, together in there gasous states then and heat enough for the combustion prosses to begin. Although it would only be a little you'd still get steam. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.101.161.169 (talk) 13:53, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Black fire?

I read somewhere that it was supposedly discovered that the hottest flames are beyond white and are actually black or at least very dark. Is there some sort of source for this? 24.247.207.18 01:58, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes there is a theory on that, and scientists haven't actually found sound'proof' of its existance though. The heat of the black fire is so intense it would melt titanium alloy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.255.183.63 (talk) 20:06, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

A quick search on google only revealed the use of the term as a trademark, a musical band and some pagan/mystical stuff. I've worked in fire protection most of my life and have never come across the term in any standards or literature. The most intense fire exposure test we know is the jet-fire test. The term is certainly counter-intuitive and counter-science as I know it. --Achim (talk) 21:45, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Just superstition, I think. Flames glow through blackbody radiation and emission spectra. I don't know if uber-hot stuff's emission spectrum would be too high-energy to see (UV, X-rays, and gamma rays), but blackbody will emit in the visible spectrum no matter how hot it gets. Twilight Realm (talk) 14:58, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

"Rare" fire

I removed the following from the article as a possible hoax.

Certain types of fire (the rare Malchesian fire) can cause other objects to burn without even being anywhere near them. This can, and has, resulted in serious spread-fires in Japan and Afganistan.

At the very least something should be cited for such a claim. Thoughts? --TeaDrinker 18:13, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

causing objects to burn without being near them? makes little sense. -Grim- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.194.182.10 (talk) 15:33, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Unscientific superstition. You were right to remove it. Twilight Realm (talk) 14:59, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Archived the talk page

Talk page was getting a bit long so I've archived it. Link provided in archive box below the infoboxes above. PeterSymonds 17:50, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Fahrenheit vs. Celsius

Choice of temperature unit changes during the article. As an encyclopidia should prefer the metric system, I believe that Celsius should be prefered over Fahrenheit. Scientifically, however, the Kelvin is the primary unit of temperature in the metric system which makes me doubt if the Celsius is better than the Fahrenheit. Either way, the choice of primary unit should be consistent. DVanDyck (talk) 10:37, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

True, Kelvin is the primary unit. But degrees Celsius is more closely related to Kelvin that Fahrenheit is. You only need to add 273.15 to the Kelvin temperature to get to Celsius, whereas Fahrenheit needs multiplication and addition. I suggest putting the whole article in Celsius with Fahrenheit between parentheses. If no objection is made, I'll change this soon. Wild Wizard (talk) 16:25, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Considering the (low) amount of attention this article gets, I decided to make it consistent now. If somebody objects, post here. Wild Wizard (talk) 16:41, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Agree. Fireproeng (talk) 16:45, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

i dont know,nor care, much about the kelvin celcius discussion buy im not sure candles burn at 1000 degrees celcius. or that cigarettes butn at 400 degrees celcius. i think you might want to reexamine the numbers listed in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.118.114.189 (talk) 08:43, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Making Fire vs Controlling Fire

Does anyone know about this, there is a website here http://www.publicaddress.net/default,4467.sm#post4467 that says that humans up until only 10,000 BC were only able to control fire not make it (i.e until then human tribes had to keep embers going from forest fires or lightning strikes). I came to wikipedia to see if I could confirm this but there is no mention in either this article or the 'Making Fire' article. Would be a really interesting tidbit of info to add if anyone knows. (125.237.20.170 (talk) 05:42, 5 January 2008 (UTC))

Sounds iffy and likley difficult to prove, either way.Rusober (talk) 03:18, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

I have heard this too. Sounds plausible enough to me, and disprovable. Need an expert. —76.22.141.17 (talk) 14:24, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

§ on Fire protection and prevention

I substituted United States with developed countries because the US is certainly not the only country that engages in fire testing, as you can see by the time/temperature curves shown in the fire-resistance rating article. The rest of the changes are but subject-related wiki-internal hyperlinks. --Achim (talk) 17:18, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Double size, +100 degrees?

I remember reading somehwere that for every time a fire doubles in size, the tempurature raises 100 degrees. Can anyone confirm this? Thanks, Javascap (talk) 18:09, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

That sounds unlikely, i may be wrong but with a wood fire dosent the heat depend on what type of wood you are using in the fire, rather then the size, although i imagine the size would some what effect it, and besides surely this would only work on a fire of a certain size, after all if you doubled a 2 degrees fire it would be a bit strange to end up with a 102 degrees one. Theterribletwins1111 (talk) 12:16, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Always doubt any rule of thumb. Especially ones with even numbers, like 10, 100, 1%, and 10%. This is just another rumor. Twilight Realm (talk) 15:04, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Fire tetrahedron

could someone change this to the fire triange? Nobody talks about the fire tetrahedron, because the forth bit(chain reaction) is the fire, its what happens when the three parts of a fire combine. Who ever added the forth bit, obviously thought they were being smart, but its a mistake. Come someone fix this. Also the picture is a bit hard to understand at a glance, try making it simplier —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.253.129.92 (talk) 06:43, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I would agree. In the land of UK Health and Safety, we always refer to the fire triangle as these are the three components you need to create a fire. The chain reaction is not an element that is part of the mix. It looks like someone was trying to make it sound more technical than it actually is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.136.189.44 (talk) 09:09, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Interpretations besides Science

This article is severely biased towards mainstream science; it doesn't even mention other ideas except in the see also section. It should at least say what other beliefs there are, even if it treats the science as hard fact. Munci (talk) 00:34, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Should this article mention Prometheus?

In the greek myths, Prometheus is the god who bought fire down to mankind, so I was wondering if we should mention him in the article. Javascap (talk) 15:31, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I think it sounds good, but I don't know what the policies are for mythology in primarily scientific articles. Maybe this article could use a history/mythology section. Judging by the state of this talk page, there's a lot of superstition about fire even today. And I'd like to know when our first guess is of humans controlling fire. Twilight Realm (talk) 15:09, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

There is room in the article for mythology. Prometheus is not "the" only god involved in fire, however. Mydogtrouble (talk) 20:56, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

This article should be merged with "heat transfer"

There is absolutely no explanation how does the "fire" transfer from particle to particle - e.g. I put some few carbon atoms in an oxygen environment and lit one fire? The "fire" is transferred to other atoms. But how is it made? Is "fire" spread by some sort of radiation of the particles? The article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_transfer is pretty good, but still not very clear. Perhaps both should be merged somehow, or summarized at least. Agameofchess (talk) 19:34, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

What are ashes?

No, seriously. What are ashes? The disambig page is no help. This article just says that they're the unburnable remains. What are the ashes of a wood fire made of? Ember says that they're mostly carbon, but that doesn't sound very unburnable to me. I've heard that they're good fertilizer, so maybe they're made of nitrogen, phosphorus, and all the other elements other than carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Is there anyone one Wikipedia with this knowledge? Twilight Realm (talk) 15:12, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Unburnable is probably a bad way of putting it. I would say the partially combusted residue, as the carbon ashes left over will "burn away" completely if enough heat is applied, and the composition of the ashes is different from the composition of the starting material, so it has partially burned. There are often a higher concentration of nitrogen, phosphorus, etc. left in ashes not because they cannot burn, but because they require more energy to burn away completely than the carbon compounds require, which is why they are often more concentrated in the ashes than in the original material.Theseeker4 (talk) 19:59, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Page 9 has a detailed ash composition chart: www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/pdf1993/misra93a.pdf

A concise explanation: www.madsci.org/posts/archives/sep2000/969811171.Ch.r.html

Ash as fertilizer: hubcap.clemson.edu/~blpprt/bestwoodash.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.77.198.218 (talk) 00:31, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Invisible flame

How are invisible flames possible? Shouldn't there always be gases that are hot enough to be incandescent? --Doradus (talk) 15:26, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Certain types of fuels, methanol for example, have an invisible flame. It is not until the flame interacts with an additional fuel source that smoke and flame will become visible. (Osufyrman (talk) 04:25, 24 September 2008 (UTC))

This mostly depends upon ambient light. "invisible flames" are often easily visible in otherwise darkness. Mydogtrouble (talk) 20:58, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Electrical Fire

I just recently had an incident in my apartment building where water from a plugged air conditioning drain leaked down into the access panel of my electric water heater, where it short-cirtuited the wiring and caught the wire insulation on fire. Luckily, this happened almost the same time I discovered the smell, so I was able to cut the power, and the fire went out -- although it could have been much worse. I'm on the 4th floor of a 16 floor apartment building.

My point is that this is commonly (although maybe not correctly) called an "electrical fire", and I was curious to look deeper into how this reaction starts. It doesn't seem to have all three elements, although the electricity must be hot enough to generate the heat. There is no mention about this topic on the "fire" page, and "electric fire" just redirects you to electric burners/heaters. This is common enough of an issue in this modern world that I would think there could be a section or an entire page with extra information about wiring and the many ways it can start a household fire where you wouldn't even think about it (i.e., my water heater basically caught fire). Just a suggestion for the discussion page...

It definitely has all three elements, as the fuel is supplied in the form of the insulation, the oxygen is atmospheric, and the heat is from the electricity as a result of the resistance of the wires...Lance Tyrell82.6.1.85 (talk) 23:31, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

The term is partially a misnomer. Electrical insulation materials, if not made of mineral or glass fibres, are special polymers manufactured, usually, to at least somewhat resist oxidation in addition to providing high electrical resistance. Combustible cellulose has also been used but have in the past also been treated commonly with fire retardants. An "electical fire" as most often occurs, is an ignition of insulation material, releasing a foul smoke, possibly followed by ignition of other materials which then burn in a more standard fashion. Mydogtrouble (talk) 21:04, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Well perhaps strictly speaking, in a technical sense, it is a "misnomer", but practically speaking, it helps A LOT to distinguish electrical (or "electrical-related") fires from non-electrical ones (see my additional comments below on the "Let's Get This Party Started" section of this talk page). Shanoman (talk) 19:25, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Broken "Reference" Links

as of 6/6/2008; reference #2 & 3 hyperlinks result in 404 (Not Found) errors.

^ CFM-1 experiment results, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, April 2005. ^ LSP-1 experiment results, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, April 2005.

66.74.15.239 (talk) 07:16, 7 June 2008 (UTC) lurker

Should we divide this article into two?

I think we need different articles for fire as disaster and for fire as chemical reaction manifested in light and heat:

• Most other languages (except English) have different words for these phenomena.
• Most non-English wikipedias have two different articles for them.
• Both meanings are of big value.
• Both articles will be big in future.
• In English Wikipedia there are different articles for water and for flood.

I named the other article "Conflagration". It is possible that "Fire (disaster)" is the better name. But not "firestorm"! Firestorm is "violent convection caused by a continuous area of intense fire and characterized by destructively violent surface indrafts" (Britannica).

Of course, the parts "Fire protection and prevention" and "Fire classifications" should be moved into this article from "Fire".

What do you think about this? Ufim (talk) 05:12, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

hi fire is used in love and passion —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.240.114.193 (talk) 00:41, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

What causes heat to burn things?

Since this is an article that is primarily scientific in nature, I thought someone here might be able to answer it. What is it that causes fire and heat to burn other things. And I mean this on a molecular level. I really have no clue myself, yet it's the only question I've ever had about anything that I couldn't find on the internet. Does it have something to do with the speed that molecules of fire/heat are moving and when this hits say the molecules of something like wood or flesh it separates them or something? Another example would be lasers. Some lasers are fine to hit other objects, they have no visible effect. However a more intense/powerful laser will burn through very hard substances. What is the intense laser actually doing to the substance at a molecular level that the weaker laser isn't. Livingston 23:56, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Invisible Fire?

Sounds like bogus; can anyone confirm this? (The 'fire during sex' part of the article.) --67.164.222.223 (talk) 02:36, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Picture

the main picture in the article is not so good —Preceding unsigned comment added by Good stuff timmy (talk • contribs) 17:34, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I would suggest using Image:Large bonfire.jpg instead. --83.226.64.212 (talk) 20:10, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Some uses of fire

From Karki, page 4-5:
"Many human activities trigger forest fires directly or indirectly. Fires are often used to clear forests for agricultural lands, settlements and paths (e.g. in Myanmar). They are also used to maintain grasslands by inhibiting succession. People also rely on fire as a land clearing and preparation tool in swidden agriculture, and to:

• burn over-mature plantations to re-establish new plantations, such as rubber plantations in Indonesia;
• improve access to facilitate the collection of honey, rattan and burnt fallen wood;
• hide evidence of illegal logging (e.g. in Thailand) or to divert attention from such sites (e.g. in Indonesia);
• increase production of resin (e.g. in Cambodia) and mushrooms (e.g. in Cambodia). Burning of undergrowth apparently improves certain mushroom production. Fire can also remove dried resin in dipterocaps and ensure better flow of resin;
• flush animals from their hideouts or encourage growth of new shoots so that wild animals can be lured to the area and be hunted;
• clear vegetation to increase visibility of snakes or other wild animals, and bandits; and
• suppress weeds and pests (e.g. in Myanmar)."

MrBell ^(talk) 22:04, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

fire is hot right ok —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.26.65.149 (talk) 21:50, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Is the uses of fire section really necessary? I mean, that list could be enormous: fire is also used in some types of mass spectrometry, in pottery production, internal combustion engines, jet engines, furnaces, burn-off towers, as a means of removing ticks from the body, as a light source on 19th century roads, etc. I am going to boldy remove it, but won't revert without more discussion if somebody wants it back. Thoughts? --TeaDrinker (talk) 21:07, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Lighters and match flares

I just removed the following bit:

The development of lighters accelerated during World War I. Soldiers used matches to find their way in the dark, but the intense initial flare of matches revealed their position. From this need for fire without a large initial flare fostered the lighter industry. By War's end lighters were being mass produced. Lighters are now commonly used by smokers. as warfare has moved on.

Uncited here, but it does have a citation on Lighter. I removed it for the reasons discussed on Talk:Lighter. Probably best to centralize discussions there. --TeaDrinker (talk) 21:22, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Protection

I do feel a protection for this article might be useful, considering the massive amount of vandalism it has seen recently. NyuCloud (talk) 12:24, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Hi there, Just made my first Wiki edit (ever) in an attempt to correct vandalism noted while conducting research. The phrase "I like boobies" still showed up in a basic google search, though by the time I made it here, it seems the phrase had been omitted—though the original content in the lede had not been re-inserted.

i.e., the lede began with the "</ref>" symbol. As a novice, I thought it best to note my edit in case it was miscalculated.

Best Regards, Wondering About Wiki (talk) 15:41, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I checked, you did it correctly. All of the information was restored. Thank you. —Stephen (talk) 15:45, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Evolution of man's technological use of fire

I removed a bit about fire's first use technologically for metals. In the anthropological sense technology also includes deliberate cooking of food, drying materials (or fire-hardening wood tools), and of course firing of pottery, all of which preceded metals technology almost certainly. (I will posit deliberate naïve addition of native ores to fires for silvery baubles that might be produced - but find evidence of it!) Mydogtrouble (talk) 21:11, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Definition

This article's definition isn't really a definition of fire, but a definition of burning. There should be some explanation as to what a flame actually is. Serendi^podous 00:39, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't see a difference between fire and burning, at least as far as the meaning that this article is about (except "fire" is a noun and "burn" is a verb). I see a difference between fire and flame. (And there's a separate article for flame, as well as a section within this article). I think one might even have fire without flame. I would agree, though, that flame could be mentioned a little more prominently in the lead, since it's such a well-known characteristic of fire. I've taken the liberty of inserting a sentence, "Visibly glowing hot gases, known as flame, are a feature of many fires." That sentence could probably stand to be improved. -- Why Not A Duck 01:14, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

That works for me. Thanks :) Serendi^podous 11:31, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Citation style

For performance reasons Wildfire and {{Origin of fire}} have switched to the {{vancite book}} citation template family, which uses Vancouver system format, and for consistency this page should switch to this citation format too. I'll volunteer to do it if nobody else wants to. Eubulides (talk) 04:04, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Can I ask why, when this already has an established citation style, using the citation template, and the WP:CITE guidelines clearly state that "You should follow the style already established in an article, if it has one; where there is disagreement, the style used by the first editor to use one should be respected.". We shouldn't be converting styles between templates, except where there is clear reason and logic to do so. OwainDavies ^(about)_(talk) edited at 07:26, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

The reason for the switch from {{citation}} to the {{vancite book}} citation family was due to the long load time of Wildfire, as discussed here. The switch greatly improved the article. MrBell ^(talk) 00:20, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

OK, I've read the discussion on that, and have to say that the arguments don't seem to quite stack up for me. I would object to changing from the most recognised citation style to Vancouver. I also wonder if this argument is effectively self defeating - is the long load time on the citation tempalte simply because it is the most widely used? If we switched everything to vancite would that not experience the same time lag? I would like to find out more about that, but in either case, i would like to keep the citation style the same, but if there is another template doing the same job i would consider? OwainDavies ^(about)_(talk) edited at 13:34, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

No, the argument is not self-defeating: the {{vcite journal}} etc. templates will be faster no matter how many articles use them. No other template does the same job. The Fire article uses a mixture of styles in its citations, and as far as I know has never been particularly consistent about citation style; if the preference is to continue to use eclectic styles then of course we'll just leave things be. Eubulides (talk) 17:53, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

OK, i've done some background reading on this and can see the reasons given in the vcite and vancite templates, but to be honest some of this just looks like back reasoning by people who prefer the Vancouver style. The Harvard style citation template is clearly the main one in use here and I would suggest keeping it that way for consistency, although if you wish to use a different template to achieve the same referencing style i would be happy with that. OwainDavies ^(about)_(talk) edited at 08:39, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

As the person who wrote the {{vcite journal}} and {{vancite journal}} templates I can assure you that I don't particularly like the Vancouver system style. I chose that style partly because it's the only one that's freely documented, partly because it's commonly used in science in medicine (areas where I edit), and partly because other Wikipedia editors like the style. I don't really care which style an article uses as long as it's consistent and contains the information readers need and it's reasonably easy to edit. The {{citation}} and {{cite journal}} templates have terrible performance, so bad that they make large articles hard to edit, but nobody wants to maintain those templates any more (this is a classic symptom of software rot). Anyway, as I said, I'll leave this article alone if there's no consensus to change its citation format. Eubulides (talk) 08:56, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Let's get this party started

Come one, come all! Time to edit this article and at least make it GA-class. Over the next few weeks I'll try to do some research for this article. Please feel free to contribute and/or correct me if I'm wrong. As long as we can move the project forward, I'm game. Any thoughts?

IMO, there should be some sections regarding (not in any particular order):

• World history of fire
• Current use of fire
• Ecology of Fire
• Physical characteristics/properties of fire, including {{seealso}} sub-sections to combustion, flame, heat transfer (intensity), light, and reaction products
• Suppression

Also, I'm not sure this article should be limited to wood burning. Maybe an additional section regarding some hard-core chemistry of burning in different atmospheres (e.g. sodium metal in chlorine gas).

So, what does everyone think? MrBell ^(talk) 23:35, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Best definition yet: "A rapid, persistent chemical change that releases heat and light and is accompanied by flame, especially the exothermic oxidation of a combustible substance." MrBell ^(talk) 23:14, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Here it is, June of 2010, and the English Wikipedia STILL does not have a decent article on such a basic, elementary word/concept as "fire"! It is one of the four ancient elements for crying out loud, this is really sad, people! I think what the gist of the problem is that nearly everyone who edits/controls this page wants it to be as eloquent (austere/minimalist) as possible, with strict pure science and speculative philosophical definitions, but very little that is of practical use to the average person. Now I love philosophy and science---and I believe that both should be included---but on something like fire, the main thrust of the article should be on the practical and technical aspects of it, say from the perspective of a firefighter, welder, or someone who really deals with it on a frequent, "hands-on" (excuse the analogy) basis. I remember learning in my junior high school industrial arts ("shop") class about different kinds of fire from a practical perspective, such as electrical, chemical, fires that burn underwater, etc., and I see none of that here. The average reader most likely does not need (or want) to know that "technically, there is no such thing as an electrical or chemical fire; all fires are chemical"; or if this fact needs to be mentioned, it should be done so in a better way so as to include the other, more practical aspects of how to understand and deal with all the different arrays (ways?) of fire. Shanoman (talk) 19:43, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree that this article is a vital article, but the challenge is that the information must be verifiable. If you're willing to add some stuff, I'm willing to help. However, no one seemed to be interested in editing this article when I first called for help. MrBell ^(talk) 21:32, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Reference 13 does nothing.

Reference 13 does nothing. It might if you have a account, but should every wiki user have a account on that site reference?--Dana60Cummins (talk) 17:12, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

doi and PMID are standard document identifiers. See WP:V#Access to sources for more on validity.--Old Moonraker (talk) 17:26, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Fire is not alive

Should the article about fire have this fact included in it? Winner 42 (talk) 14:55, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Well is it a "fact" or just an opinion? Fire is stated to have a "voracious appetite"; arguably, a particular fire does have some of the characteristics of life: it starts (birth); it can grow or not depending on the conditions, it eventually dies; it can certaintly kill (people, animals, birds, plants, trees); it can be fought and extinguished (killed) if the conditions are right; it can "jump" across gaps/fire breaks; and it can cause other fires to start (breding). It depends on how "life" is defined. Pyrotec (talk) 15:13, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

It may have some requirements of life but not all. Here is what the dictionary says about life:

• the condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally.
• the condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms (fire burns organic fuel, might meet criteria
• being manifested by growth through metabolism (Yes)
• reproduction (you could call it reproduction but it's more like growth, slightly meets critrea)
• the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally (cannot adapt through evolution though it can increase and decrease it temperature. Meets criteria slightly but not completely.)

So we have a: might meet criteria, a yes, and two only slightly but not completely.

Or if we really want to we can use the biological definition.:

1. Homeostasis: Regulation of the internal environment to maintain a constant state; for example, electrolyte concentration or sweating to reduce temperature. (No, fire will change it's temperature in response to the enviroment, no regulation)

2. Organization: Being structurally composed of one or more cells, which are the basic units of life. (No cells)

3. Metabolism: Transformation of energy by converting chemicals and energy into cellular components and decomposing organic matter. Living things require energy to maintain internal organization and to produce the other phenomena associated with life. (Mostly it does meet the first part of this requirment.)

4. Growth: Maintenance of a higher rate of anabolism than catabolism. A growing organism increases in size in all of its parts, rather than simply accumulating matter. (Yes fire will grow if possible)

5. Adaptation: The ability to change over a period of time in response to the environment. This ability is fundamental to the process of evolution and is determined by the organism's heredity as well as the composition of metabolized substances, and external factors present. (Somewhat, see dictionary definition)

6. Response to stimuli: A response can take many forms, from the contraction of a unicellular organism to external chemicals, to complex reactions involving all the senses of multicellular organisms. A response is often expressed by motion, for example, the leaves of a plant turning toward the sun and by chemotaxis.(Slightly)

7. Reproduction: The ability to produce new individual organisms, either asexually from a single parent organism, or sexually from two parent organisms. (No, it doesn't create individual organisms plus there is no sex with fire, it's just a chemical reaction) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Winner 42 (talk • contribs) 18:01, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

OK, there is no sexual reproduction, but thermal radiation from one fire can cause another fire to start nearby. That is the "gap-jumping" and secondary fires.

Fire will change its temperature in response to oxygen levels - Backdraft.

Returning to your original question, I'm happy to accept that it does not fully meet the biological definition of life; but your (rehashed) statement "Fire is not alive - fact" is controversial and needs quantification (which is what we have here). Pyrotec (talk) 18:18, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Other exothermic reactions

Don't we refer to any exothermic reaction that produces visable heat and light a flame? What about halogenation such as a this bromination of aluminium: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uryb9-TFJMM —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.171.89.79 (talk) 00:06, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Catalyst

The definition of catalyst in the article appears to be inaccurate. It states that the catalyst is not involved in the reaction. It should probably read that the catalyst remains unaltered instead. Could a chemist look at this? 199.89.175.5 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:52, 21 January 2011 (UTC).

Flame as energy release

I heard once that the light from the flame is some of the energy being released from the fuel. Is this true? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.28.72.87 (talk) 19:50, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

The light and the heat are the energy being released. Pyrotec (talk) 20:02, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Well yes thats true but the purple ones do burn just like the original and orange flames do. It is this which Ganondorf used his Warlock Punch and does set anything on fire on this link:

[2] — Preceding unsigned comment added by HappyLogolover2011 (talk • contribs) 15:40, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Do not forget the fire triangel wich includes air,fule and wood, That is the most improtant thing you need to remember when starting a fire. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.70.161.201 (talk) 23:45, 23 November 2010 (UTC) The strongest color would be clear flames since no energy is being output —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.173.176.238 (talk) 20:03, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

External link suggestion

Though I know wikipedia is NOT a link list, I suggest to add a virtual exhibition about the history of fire —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tcheuk (talk • contribs) 15:47, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Very interesting link, but generally Wikipedia avoids links that require plugins like Flash Player. See Wikipedia:ELNO#Links_normally_to_be_avoided, specifically #8. MrBell ^(talk) 15:52, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Chemistry section, fire extinguishing part 3

Currently it is article states as Step 3 in the part about extinguishing a fire: "application of water, which removes heat from the fire faster than the fire can produce it (similarly, blowing hard on a flame will displace the heat of the currently burning gas from its fuel source, to the same end), or"

I think it is important to mention here that there are some circumstances hin which one would never want to put water on a fire. This information can be found in any lab safety textbook, but it is not common knowledge. There are still people who are attempting to put out grease fires with water (never do that!), and it ends up making the fire worse. Since the example used in the article is of a fire caused by a gas flame (like a kitchen fire), it seems very important to clarify this.

There are some other circumstances in which one should never pour water on a flame, as that will only make the fire get worse and spread faster. I hope someone has time to look this up and add it to the article. (I think the part about fire extinguishing is well-written, by the way, it just needs this one part clarified.) Thanks. Fallendarling (talk) 00:04, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

(I'm new to wikipedia talk, so please excuse any etiquette mistakes I make) I agree. There are indeed some cases in which pouring water on a fire is not a good idea, and can even make it worse. Take for example calcium oxide (quicklime). It may actually ignite other nearby flammable materials if water is poured on it. Alkali metals are explosive in water. Not all fires are safe to pour water on Cormac596 (talk) 15:47, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Edit request from Thisisleonidas, 1 April 2011

fire is light Thisisleonidas (talk) 15:28, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

How to increase this article's comprehensiveness

There is almost certainly a wide folklore surrounding fire, and this article's comprehensiveness would be increased if it referrred to that. At present, this article is biassed towards physics and chemistry and says little on humann issues, e.g. on fire safety. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 15:58, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Good idea. Potentially, it's a very wide topic and a new daughter article, with little more than a linking {{Main}} template here, might be better as "future proof". --Old Moonraker (talk) 13:55, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

When someone who can edit it happens along, you might like to replace the dead link in the references with the following archived version: http://web.archive.org/web/20091028180012/http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast12may_1.htm — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.63.58.240 (talk) 12:47, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Fair use for Darkness Fire.jpg

Even though darkness is a fire type which is purple and not orange and red. I could believe there should be an image which contains a darkness fire on the article so may wanna put some fair use things on the description so that it can stay on the article.--HappyLogolover2011 (talk) 22:00, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

agree70.24.76.160 (talk) 23:43, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

File:Darkness Fire.jpg Nominated for speedy Deletion

An image used in this article, File:Darkness Fire.jpg, has been nominated for speedy deletion for the following reason: All Wikipedia files with unknown copyright status What should I do? Don't panic; you should have time to contest the deletion (although please review deletion guidelines before doing so). The best way to contest this form of deletion is by posting on the image talk page. If the image is non-free then you may need to provide a fair use rationale If the image isn't freely licensed and there is no fair use rationale, then it cannot be uploaded or used. If the image has already been deleted you may want to try Deletion Review This notification is provided by a Bot --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 22:24, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Uses of fire under human control.

In the "Human control" part, I think the paragraph on the use of fire for torture (with sadistic details) doesn't belong. Perhaps use of fire in signalling was much more important and widespread. -- In the section on uses of fire in wars, the "scorched earth" tactics (by Scythians, by Russians) would deserve to be mentioned.Svato (talk) 02:10, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Sound

I find that every fire releases sound too.85.210.145.92 (talk) 20:07, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Fire Defined at the Straight Dope

Fire is the rapid combination of oxygen with fuel in the presence of heat, typically characterized by flame, a body of incandescent gas that contains and sustains the reaction and emits light and heat.

— Cecil Adams at The Straight Dope, What Exactly is Fire?

I like this better than the current lede, which fails to mention that fire is a "body on incandescent gas" and is self-sustaining. 75.37.17.156 (talk) 20:25, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Oxygen isn't necessary. Other gases such as chlorine will work instead. DOwenWilliams (talk) 20:33, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

If fire is defined as an oxidation-reduction reaction, involving the oxygen in ambient air and a "fuel", then that discounts chlorine. You could have added that fluorine will work as well, and that would also be true. Both of those processes would be oxidation-reduction reactions, involving chlorine (or fluorine) and a fuel; but neither of them are naturally occuring since we don't live in a world containing approximately 21% by volume of chlorine. Pyrotec (talk) 19:38, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Fire : Only humans use it

Need to discuss seriously, the reactions of of fire. Those are irreversible. Man is the only species to use the fire in direct & indirect manner. The oxygen is consumed during fire and the carbon dioxide with other gases is produced. The carbon is temporarily utilized by trees,ocean. The important aspect to consider is : When the wood is used or decomposes when tree is dead, the carbon is released again in the atmosphere.

Thus the use of fire should minimized. Life can be more comfortable. As fire destroys the valuable properties of the given substance,the quality is reduced. Reducing the use of fire seems to be the chief remedy to all man made maladies responsible for the current & impending evils on the living & non living on our planet. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Drkabra (talk • contribs) 00:42, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

It is unclear what point you are trying to make. Please keep your discussion limited to specific thoughts on how to improve the article. Thank you. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 01:10, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

It can be intelligent information, only if we had more sources. OccultZone (talk) 08:02, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Restoration?

This has no place in this topic. Thoughts? Kortoso (talk) 16:35, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Torture and execution

The second paragraph of this section, on torture and execution, is completely irrelevant to the paragraphs above and below it. If there's any point in retaining it, it should probably be moved below the paragraph on fire in warfare. 140.247.0.117 (talk) 15:47, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I would agree with you, on both points. Pyrotec (talk) 19:29, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

FIREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(issue resolved) cooked food

In the first paragraph, the sentence "[...] Evidence of cooked food is found from 1.9 million years ago [...]" lacks citation. There is evidence of cooked food from 1 million years ago. Request to make the appropriate edit and add a reference. The article is semi-protected. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:6000:1603:C00C:15A9:269A:1337:C7DF (talk) 06:41, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

References

Added your citation and removed tag. User:liua97

Soil erosion and fire

(The following text was posted on my Talk:User page in rssponse to an edit I made to the Fire page. I'm moving it here so everyone can see it, and comment if they wish. DOwenWilliams (talk) 14:54, 4 August 2014 (UTC))

Hi there -- I have to say that I disagree with your reversion of my edit to the fire page.

As it now stands, the sentence reads "The negative effects of fire include water contamination, soil erosion, atmospheric pollution and hazard to life and property."

• Hazard to life and property is obvious, and clearly is very serious and is applicable world-wide.
• Atmospheric pollution is less obvious (needs some mention of particulates in my opinion) but is serious and world-wide.
• Ditto water contamination: serious, world-wide but again needs some mention of the physical mechanism involved.
• Now soil erosion (which is my research background, see David_Favis-Mortlock)... only in those areas of the world which are both relatively arid, and where rain (when it does fall) is intense, is fire an important trigger for soil erosion. In more temperate areas, the effects of accidental fire on erosion are both short-lived and minor: vegetation is not totally destroyed by fire in such areas (the heat does not penetrate so far into damp soils), also fire may well stimulate rapid post-fire new growth of vegetation by release of organic matter (hence slash-and-burn agriculture). Erosion may be increased temporarily and slightly, but it isn't a big deal. There is also deliberate burning: on intensively farmed agricultural areas in temperate regions, burning of crops used to be a regular tillage operation (less common now at least in NW Europe, due to smoke affecting nearby communities; burning of crops may still be practised in less crowded parts of the world). I'm not aware of any soil erosion resulting from deliberate agricultural burning.

So the list of four negative effects of fire consists of three apples and an orange, in my opinion. Soil erosion is the orange, I don't think it should remain in the list. (And other people might wish to say more about two of the apples: i.e. exactly how fire creates negative effects on atmosphere and water).

OK if I remove soil erosion from the list then? Ta!

Dave F-M — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dave Favis-Mortlock (talk • contribs) 09:10, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

I feel that erosion should be included in the list, but if you want to add a comment that it is less harmful than the others, that would be useful. DOwenWilliams (talk) 14:54, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 12 September 2014

Under section 1.1 Chemistry, the 3rd paragraph contains a sentence that reads "Without gravity, a fire rapidly surrounds itself with its own combustion products and non-oxidizing gases from the air, which exclude oxygen and extinguish it." The last word, "it", is sufficiently separated from what it refers to, "a fire", that its meaning is unclear. It could be interpreted, for example, to refer to the noun immediately preceding it, "oxygen", which does not make sense. I suggest replacing "extinguish it" with "extinguish the fire". Adventurer61 (talk) 02:49, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Done Stickee (talk) 04:55, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Edit suggestion: Basic definition as phenomenon, not chemical reaction

The current "introduction definition" of Fire is as such:

Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products.

However, Fire does not typically refer to the oxidation reaction (that would be combustion, oxidation, redox, etc.), rather it refers to the phenomenon of heat, light, and reaction products. So I am suggesting a wording as such:

Fire is the phenomenon of heat, light, and various reaction products emitted by a material that is undergoing a rapid exothermic chemical process of combustion.

This would define the term Fire, and not the reaction behind the fire, which have their own pages

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Wijowa (talk • contribs) 09:53, 19 October 2014 (UTC) 

I'm with you on this, partially because the emphasis on oxidation has evidently created a perceived need to point out that digestion and rust aren't fire. Changing it to your version would hopefully allow the deletion of the rust/digestion sentence entirely, but even as it stands it needs to be edited. The first sentence contains the definition *of fire*, as such the phrasing of the second sentence means "digestion and rust are not included by this definition (of fire)." I understand it is meant to suggest that slower oxidative processes "are not included in this definition (of oxidation)" but that is not how it reads, syntactically.

This is a bit of a double whammy as well, in that the written definition of fire already includes the phrases "rapid oxidation" and "the exothermic chemical process of combustion". These phrases already eliminate the possibility of rust and digestion; stating that they do so is redundant.99.244.230.178 (talk) 02:08, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Seems sensible. OwainDavies ^(about)_(talk) edited at 13:44, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

--115.118.103.139 (talk) 09:10, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

FIRE

FIRE IS NOTHING,WE SEE IT BECAUSE ,THE FUEL THAT BURNS IS ACTUALLY CONVERTED INTO GAS,THEN THE GAS STARTS EMITTING HEAT AFTER IT ABSORBS ENOUGH HEAT AND THEN IF IT EMITS ENOUGH HEAT,WE SEE IT AS A FLAME.WE SEE HEAT COLORS AND FLAME OUTLINE CURVED AS THE GAS TRAVELS IN A CURVED PATH AND COLORS AS AT ALTITUDES,THERE IS LESS HEAT FOR MORE HEAT BEING EMITTED115.118.103.139 (talk) 09:03, 9 January 2015 (UTC)115.118.103.139 (talk) 09:B 9 January 2015 (UTC)SARANGA,7B,AKSHARA SCHOOL,KAKINADA

It's good to see your caps lock key works. Σούπερμαν (talk) 14:11, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Third Introductory Paragraph

The third introductory paragraph is roughly four times as long as either of the preceding two, yet it primarily focuses on ecological issues. This seems like a severe misrepresentation of the topic at hand. Is nitrogen fixation really so central to the concept of fire that it deserves the better part of a paragraph that is four times longer than the definition of fire itself? If we want to talk about the exact details of ecology as it relates to fire, it seems that it would be better suited to a subsidiary section, and not the introduction itself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Toph620 (talk • contribs) 06:07, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

fire vs combustion vs burning

It took me a while to figure out what the difference between the fire article and combustion article are supposed to be about because in normal usage they and burning are synonyms. The fire and combustion leads do not clearly define and the difference in scope of the two articles (burning redirects to combustion). Would anyone object to my editing this lead or adding a hatnote to say something like "fire and combustion are frequently used as synonyms but this article's scope is about fire as a phenomenon, an observation or experience, for technical aspects of the chemical reaction and physics see combustion. Jim Derby (talk) 01:39, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

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• Added archive https://web.archive.org/20081206013312/http://www.firecomm.gov.mb.ca:80/safety_education_nero_and_ashcan.html to http://www.firecomm.gov.mb.ca/safety_education_nero_and_ashcan.html#6

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Fossil record section.

Hi. I believe the fossil record section should be reworded because the way it is currently worded may give a defence for someone who has done something bad, that being, a gardener who cuts down trees and plants for a reason other than food purposes, by allowing them to claim that if they didn't cut down the trees and plants then a chance of wildfire might occur. Let me be quite clear, such a gardener is guilty of indirectly killing another human being. I suggest someone other than myself edit the section and the appropriate main article. Jondeanmack (talk) 07:09, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

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Missing referenced picture of Canadian forest fire

Under section "Flame", second paragraph, the article states, "The photo of the forest fire in Canada is an excellent example of this variation." It then goes on to describe the color/heat variation in that photo. There's no photo of a forest fire in Canada though. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.201.117.13 (talk) 08:25, 23 March 2016 (UTC)