Fire

Fire is a form of combustion. Most typically, the word fire refers to the combination of the brilliant glow and large amount of heat released during a rapid, self-sustaining exothermic oxidation process of combustible gases ejected from a fuel. The flames are a body of plasma that releases heat and light. Fires start when a fuel is subjected to heat or another energy source, e.g. a match or lighter, and are sustained by the further release of heat energy until all the combustible fuel is consumed.

Science of fire

A flame is a self-sustaining oxidizing chemical reaction producing energy and ionized gas (plasma). It consists of reacting gases emitting visible and infrared light, the frequency spectrum of which is dependent on the chemical composition of the burning elements and intermediate reaction products. In many cases such as burning organic matter like wood or incomplete combustion of gas, incandescent solid particles (soot) produce the familiar red-orange 'fire' color light. This light has a continuous spectrum. Complete combustion of gas has a dim blue color due to the emission of single wavelength radiations from various electron transitions in the excited molecules formed in the flame. Usually oxygen is involved, but hydrogen burning in chlorine produces a flame as well, producing hydrogen chloride (HCl). Other possible combinations producing flames (amongst many more) are fluorine and hydrogen or hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide.

Related Topics:
Plasma - Infrared - Frequency spectrum - Combustion - Soot - Hydrogen - Chlorine - Hydrogen chloride - Fluorine - Hydrazine - Nitrogen tetroxide

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The glow of a flame is somewhat complex, due to a mix of black-body radiation emitted from soot, gas, and fuel particles (though the soot particles are too small to behave like perfect blackbodies), and from photon emission by de-excited atoms and molecules in the gases. Much of the radiation is emitted in the visible and infrared bands. The color depends on temperature for the black-body radiation, and chemical makeup for the emission spectra.

Related Topics:
Black-body radiation - Photon - Atoms - Molecules - Infrared - Emission spectra

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