Talk:Fire/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Human control

Under the section Human control there is a gif that I find offensive. I would like to delete it. I don't know how to edit it and re-upload it et but if someone does then that would be an alternative. I find it offensive on so many levels. The animation is:

• irritatingly distracting to readers (especially those with poor eyesight)
• contributes nothing to the article (all readers know what the word "rubbing" means without illustration)
• racist (if this needs explanation then no explanation would suffice!)

This last aspect is the worst but perhaps too "subtle" for wikipedia to accept and for that reason the other two reasons should be enough to justify deletion or removal of the animation. No editor is associated with the file and I can find no method for reporting or dealing with such files. Advice welcome otherwise I'll delete and take the issue through the relevant process if needed. LookingGlass (talk) 18:28, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

History

I was hoping someone would include something about the history of fire in modern civilisation, Tracing back to the stone age, even though this is difficult to research I just think the fact that "lightning igniting a branch" discovered by cavemen then used to cook has been used a lot in fiction that I expected it to be cleared up somewhere. If there is another article where these informations can be found I'd be glad if someone shared it. VictorCreator (talk) 17:25, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

There is literally no information about initial uses of fire - every culture we know about has had fire, the discovery predates any possible evidence of how it was discovered. Tarl N. (discuss) 18:33, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

External links modified

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Discussion

Fire in its most common form can result in conflagration, which has the potential to cause physical damage through burning

this line is the most retarded one... fire itself can be done without damaging.. or separating"damaging" an estructure? just like o2... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.101.72.48 (talk • contribs) 23:24, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

This page is for discussing improvements to the article. It is not for discussion or chat. Thank you Jim1138 (talk) 23:32, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Use as fuel -- updating info fossil fuel use.

Does anyone want to pull more recent statistics on Fossil fuel usage. Also, would this be a good place to mention Climate change or would that be too off topic? --Robert Wm "Ruedii" (talk) 16:04, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 December 2017

change the link INFLAMMABLE to FLAMMABLE - there is no such word as INFLAMMABLE. there is FLAMMABLE, meaning it can burn, and the opposite is NON-FLAMMABLE 82.31.71.235 (talk) 00:37, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Not done: "inflammable; ADJECTIVE: Easily set on fire.‘inflammable and poisonous gases’. Usage: The words inflammable and flammable both have the same meaning, ‘easily set on fire.’..." Definition from the Oxford Dictionaries (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/us/inflammable), which should be just as authoritative in Lincolnshire as in the rest of the English-speaking word that uses it this way. See also WP:SNODGRASS. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 02:54, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

"See also" section

Shouldn't the list include a link to the article fire triangle? It explains the main elements that make up fire, and this article doesn't make mention of it at all, so at leas it should provide a link to that one in the SA section. --2600:1700:5F0:AD20:2178:9AA:B498:DEA0 (talk) 03:34, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

 Done Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 03:57, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 January 2018

Please delete "of course" in "Of course, this does not apply if oxygen is supplied to the fire..." per MOS:NOTE. 5.151.0.111 (talk) 22:00, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Done Sakura Cartelet^Talk 02:50, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 January 2018

202.134.13.140 (talk) 02:13, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. — IVORK _Discuss 04:24, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

fire is a gas! surprising I know right–°– — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.90.87.88 (talk) 19:37, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 May 2018

External links

• Fire damage restoration process Megha1109 (talk) 05:55, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

 Not done: The external links section is usually reserved for linking to closely related papers and official websites, not generic tip guides related to the subject. — IVORK _Discuss 06:05, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6th December 2018

Restoration section near the end seems to be mostly US-centric. That's fine, as long as it's marked as such. Could someone with edit-access perhaps reword this section or otherwise make it clear that it's largely for US readers, please? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.241.236.92 (talk) 07:56, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:Fire for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:Fire is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Fire until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 23:34, 2 June 2019 (UTC)The fire was created by trey because he had a basketball game tommorow and he jsaknixniasj

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:American Refugee Committee which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 20:47, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

This girl tried to insert propaganda on this page

This girl tried to insert propaganda on this page. She's a well-known fire apologist and will try to skew the page. https://www.sandraandwoo.com/2021/04/13/1260-larisas-life-advice-part-1/ Teolemon (talk) 06:31, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 January 2022

The fourth picture is mislabeled as “ coal” when it should say “charcoal”. Bstormo (talk) 02:07, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

 Done ––FormalDude ^talk 03:41, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Fringe theories

I'd like to remove this sentence from the lede:

Fire is hot because the conversion of the weak double bond in molecular oxygen, O₂, to the stronger bonds in the combustion products carbon dioxide and water releases energy (418 kJ per 32 g of O₂); the bond energies of the fuel play only a minor role here.

The statements are part of a fringe theory which the author calls "the oxygen theory of combustion and respiration energetics". While not all of the claims in the quoted sentence are incorrect, the suggestion that energy is "stored in" oxygen rather than the fuel certainly is, and the estimate of 418 kJ/mol(O₂) for the heat of combustion is "valid" only for a small class of fuels. The remaining statements do not seem important enough to me to remain in the article's lede.

Please note that the editor in question has added references to his papers to a large number of Wikipedia articles, usually to support pseudoscience claims. Removing them all is going to take a while.

IpseCustos (talk) 09:40, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

This sentence is a correct and relevant scientific statement about bond energies and the heat of combustion, not a suggestion or opinion. It states documented, verifiable facts based on universally accepted values of bond energies. That heats of reaction, including combustion, can be estimated from bond energies is also universally accepted in chemistry. A peer-reviewed reference providing all the details is provided for verification. In short, nothing is scientifically incorrect about this sentence.

The claim that the estimate of 418 kJ/mol(O₂) is valid "only for a small class of fuels" is very misleading. The estimate for the heat of combustion is valid (±3%) for most common organic fuels and millions of other organic molecules. Only if the fuel contains triple bonds or more heteroatoms (O, N, S, P) than carbon atoms, which is fairly uncommon, does the estimate become less accurate (usually ±30%), but this is still useful.

Editors are of course free to replace this sentence with a better, even more widely applicable and more accurate explanation (properly sourced) of the heat released by fire. But just deleting this correct explanation of a central property of fire, namely that it is hot, is not in the interest of Wikipedia readers.

Klaus Schmidt-Rohr (talk) 14:22, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

"Common organic fuel without triple bonds and with few heteroatoms" is a highly restricted class. Still, benzene falls outside of your range, for example, because aromaticity is one of the many factors you're not accounting for.

But that doesn't matter. Incorrect claims are fine on Wikipedia as long as they're referenced by verifiable, reliable (ideally, secondary) sources which establish their notability.

Please provide such sources.

IpseCustos (talk) 17:50, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

The condition is not "with few heteroatoms"; for instance, sugars contain as many heteroatoms as carbon atoms, and the estimate applies very well. When heteroatoms exceed carbon atoms, which is fairly uncommon, then the heat of combustion may be somewhat larger (because of weak bonds among the heteroatoms). Notably, the reaction is still highly exothermic because of weakly bonded atoms other than C and H in the reactants. And there is no restriction to common organic fuels; it applies to any organic molecule not dominated by heteroatoms, and the larger and more complex the molecule, the smaller the percent error. So this is not a highly restrictive class.

Benzene does not fall outside my range. The estimate of the standard heat of combustion (i.e. the higher heating value) gives -418 kJ/mol (6+6x0.3)= -3260 kJ/mol; the experimental value from NIST is -3268 kJ/mol. That's a deviation of only 0.2% (comparable to the experimental uncertainty). The over 500 molecules for which the standard deviation of <3% was determined contain a large number of examples with aromatic rings. So my claim is not incorrect, at all.

When a Wikipedia article discusses a scientific question, provably incorrect claims should not be acceptable if there are sources that make provably correct statements on the topic. When it comes to science, a source that makes an incorrect claim is not "reliable" on that topic, by definition. If there is no reliable secondary source, then primary sources must be acceptable. Otherwise, you would be saying that primary sources can never be quoted on Wikipedia, which is not true. It seems that there is no secondary source that explains why fire it hot and the heat of combustion proportional to oxygen consumption (please prove this conclusion wrong to end this discussion), so we must resort to peer-reviewed primary sources from reputable publishers like the American Chemical Society; that is consistent with Wikipedia rules.

In addition, ANSI and ISO standards have now been added as sources to a central statement in this paragraph. These will count as secondary sources. Klaus Schmidt-Rohr (talk) 02:42, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

You're confusing two different methods of estimation. The one we were talking about in this article is "-419 kJ/mol(O₂)", which results in a number of -3142 kJ/mol for benzene.

The reason there are no good secondary sources that give a positive answer to your question is because the negative answer is well-established. That's not a good reason to go looking for primary sources that slipped through some kind of peer-review process and give a positive answer. It's a good reason not to include the positive answer as fact. IpseCustos (talk) 07:06, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

You are confusing the lower and higher heating values of benzene. The formula you used, which does not include the heat released by condensation of water, gives the lower heating value of benzene. The experimental value of the lower heating value of benzene is -3136 kJ/mol, in excellent agreement (<0.2% deviation) with the estimate of -3142 kJ/mol from -419 kJ/mol(O₂). This confirms again that this simple formula provides very good estimates of heats of combustion of organic fuels.

To address the concerns raised, I have revised the sentence that is under debate here. Please have a look. Every statement made is now documented by a reliable secondary source (a textbook with a specific page number or an official standard). I hope that will settle the issue. Klaus Schmidt-Rohr (talk) 13:39, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

It is not clear to me from the text of the article that the "-419 kJ/mol(O₂)" method refers to the lower heating value. If it does, please make that clear in the article so others won't look as silly as I do now. (In other words, you're right about benzene, we need to look further than mere aromaticity for significant differences).

Regardless, we need to point out clearly that this method yields a usable but rough estimate (why the three-digit precision, then?), not a precise value, for a restricted class of fuels (dry ones, in particular). And that makes the statement too long and specific to go in the lede section of an article about fire.

My suggestion remains to move this sentence to the "Chemistry" section.

(Do you happen to have at hand the numbers for triacetone triperoxide? Maybe "peroxides" is another exception to your rule...)

Once we have a specific statement about a specific class of fuels and a reasonable statement that this is an approximation, not a precise calculation, we can look for references and include the statement in the chemistry section, IMHO. IpseCustos (talk) 14:28, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

By changing the crucial phrase to "(about 420 kJ per 32 g of O₂, for most dry organic fuels)", I have addressed all the points of criticism:

-- "about 420" has only two significant figures and is explicitly approximate.

-- "dry" specifies that the fuel must be dry.

-- "most" does not claim all fuels. Still one should note that this is such a useful value that it is used widely in fire safety practice and is part of official standards, as quoted.

-- it's not a very long phrase.

The lower heating value is implied here because this is an article about fire, not about the standard heat of combustion measured in a calorimeter cooled back to 298 K. Because fire is hot, most water formed does not condense to give off its heat at the site of the fire. Lower and higher heating values are appropriately discussed under Heat of combustion. Klaus Schmidt-Rohr (talk) 01:20, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Given your significant COI in this matter, I would like to ask you, again, to discuss proposed controversial changes on this talk page. Thank you. IpseCustos (talk) 12:52, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

References

Without expressing an opinion here (because I lack one) I at least observe the sentence was added a few years ago in this DIFF by Klaus Schmidt-Rohr (talk · contribs), who indeed appears to be the cited paper's author. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:49, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Old unsigned discussions. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 06:36, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

Fire in curved space Most of reality is nearly flat, the tallest mountain far less than a millimeter above the lowest valley. When I think of fire, I imagine an earthquake of our world falling down a large fault line, a few quanta tall as some atoms come apart (up direction) and fall together (down direction) farther in other combinations, and the quake is felt as light, which is the curve of space, echos outward in many directions like a tidal wave, pushing up the nearly flat surface of reality wherever it may hit and everywhere between. Everywhere and everything is Event_horizon not just the most extreme parts where we normally think of blackholes. Fire is Photoelectric_effect extended to molecules instead of just electrons, similar to a nuclear explosion emitting light except it doesnt fall that far. not in citation, etc " Fire also kept nocturnal predators at bay. Evidence of cooked food is found from 1.9 million years ago,[19]" <<< The cited source do not have this string "1.9" the closest date is "The basalt member at the base of the Chesowanja Formation has been dated to 1.42±0.07 Ma," and it was site with bones of Australopithecus boisei. Also not only nocturnal predators fire keep at bay; diurnal predators too.

Two things

One: This part of the article refers to a picture that was removed: The photo of the forest fire in Canada is an excellent example of this variation. I don't want to just take an axe to it because I think the discussion of flame colors and chemistry is useful. So I'm noting it here for people to mull over what to do.

Two: Noting this because I'm honestly unsure about it, so I'm not going to edit it: In combustion engines, various steps are taken to eliminate a flame. The method depends mainly on whether the fuel is oil, wood, or a high-energy fuel such as jet fuel. Does that mean what's sought is to prevent a flame from forming? Might want to reword that if so. And there's plenty more that could be said. How is this done, link to relevant articles, get sources. --47.155.46.15 (talk) 07:04, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Someone had raised the same issue about the hanging reference in 2016. I found that the image in question was part of a gallery that was deleted in 2014 as part of cleanup. I have replaced the hanging reference with an actual image, but it is different than the one that was originally referenced. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 06:52, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

The original was better after all. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 06:55, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

The other sentence has been deleted entirely due to its vague nature and lack of sources; it is probably WP:OR. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 06:53, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

"Reaction in case of fire" - WP:NOTGUIDE

I still assert that the entire "Reaction in case of fire" section (previous version: [1], deleted by me [2]) is contrary to WP:NOTGUIDE and should be removed. Other editors are invited to comment. Mitch Ames (talk) 03:09, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

 Done B3251 (talk) 17:48, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

"Reaction in case of fire" - Appropiated

Hello. Well, I understand the article is not merely about the physical properties of fire or something so narrow. Having in mind it already mentions things as "Prevention and protection systems" and "History of human control of fire". Please, allow me to improve this article by expanding it. Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scriptir (talk • contribs) 01:53, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Please read WP:NOTGUIDE. "Prevention and protection systems" and "History of human control of fire" are clearly written as descriptions of things, whereas "Reaction in case of fire" is clearly written as a how-to or instruction manual, which means that it is not appropriate here. Mitch Ames (talk) 02:31, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Okay. I made an attempt to expose a fire situation without making an instruction manual of it, but it seems that I didn't achieve it. Anyway, I think that some of that interesting information would have to appear here. Now I am ready to write a new text about the matter. Please, allow me to publish it for the improvement of Wikipedia and the satisfaction of many readers. Thank you! Scriptir (talk) 02:53, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

I suggest that you post a draft here and get feedback before adding it to the article. Mitch Ames (talk) 02:57, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Well, basically:

The text will content an introduction about what is an accident with fire, and why it is so dangerous.

Next, I would mention the possible scenarios of fire, including major fires, minor fires, particular fires which involve electricity, etc. Different scenarios imply particular reactions. Some part has to be dedicated to the science behind fire extinction.

Additionally, some concepts must be explained, as the usage of an "escape route" and its timing, and the differences between fire extinguisers, because not all of them are filled with the same agent, which can be interesting in a general view.

I have much information, I could explain it in many ways. Scriptir (talk) 05:49, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

I suspect that much detail (as you have previously added) is simply to much for the Fire article, and ought to be elsewhere. In many cases it already is, such as in the articles listed in {{Fire protection}}. We have entire articles about: fire types, fire escapes, fire extinguishers, etc. Not everything needs to be in the Fire article. (See also Wikipedia:Content forking.) Mitch Ames (talk) 13:18, 8 August 2023 (UTC)