Intro
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Intro
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What is fire anyway? What do you think of as fire- some people think it's all in the flame, others in the substance that burns. Fire is actually the result of a rapid combination of an oxidizer with a fuel in such a way that they together react producing heat, light, and virtually always flames. The chemical oxidation reaction of fire is known as combustion. But then what is happening in the flame then? The flame, which gives the light, is composed of glowing particles of burning material and luminous gases released from the reaction. Normally because these gases are hotter and therefore less dense than the surrounding air, they rise which leads to the familiar shape of a flame:
From: http://arrow.utias.utoronto.ca/~ogulder/CoolFlames.htm However, flames are very different in shape in space- see the phenomena page. A common theory for fire is the idea of the Fire Triangle. It states that there are three things necessary to have a fire: fuel, oxidizer and energy. It likens three constituents to three sides of a triangle. As long as the triangle is not complete, then at least one of the constituents is missing, and so it is impossible to have a fire.
From: www.dupont.com/safety/en/downloads/Chapter14-Fire.PDF A fuel is anything that will burn, and includes some elements, many covalently bonded gases and organic compounds. For solid or liquid fuels, the fuel must produce a gas for a combustion reaction.
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