The Mechanism of Starting a Fire

If you put flame of a lighted match under a piece of wood, you can be sure that most of time wood will not catch fire. Even if you dip a lighted cigarette into a pan of lubrication oil, it is very unlikely that pan of oil will catch fire.

So how does a fire actually start?

To answer this question, we must know how a fuel burns. A piece of wood can be considered a fuel. The carpet fabric on floor of your house is also a fuel. But why does some fuel burn so easily while others do not? How does a fuel burn?

Taking a piece of wood as an example, below is sequence of events that happen when a fire occurs.

· First, there must be a source of heat, a combustible or fuel present, and sufficient oxygen. (Remember Fire Triangle) · Next, source of heat, like a naked flame, must meet with combustible for a certain amount of time. · The combustible must be able to absorb a considerable amount of heat from heat source in order to decompose. Combustibles that can burn are usually organic compounds containing carbon. When heat reaches combustible, latter will give off gases due to decomposition of its material structure. Some of these gases are combustibles themselves. Water vapor may also be given off. · The wood becomes drier and drier. The gases given off by decomposition of wood will catch fire by themselves. The heated wood keeps on giving out combustible gases as long as it is heated. · With additional heat given off from burning of gases in wood, heat becomes more intense. More parts of wood are heated, and more combustible gases emerge. The fire keeps getting bigger and bigger until whole piece of wood is consumed. · If this bigger source of heat from burning of piece of wood is able to contact other combustibles, then fire will spread to whole house or building.

Looking at Sources of Heat and Fuel

The obvious sources of heat are electrical heaters, electrical light bulbs, ovens, open flames of gas stove, electrical sparking, friction caused by rubbing, and so on.

Those that are not obvious are often things that will cause accidental fires. Electrical wiring is one of them. A good practice for home is to check electrical wiring conditions. This is especially so for old houses. The insulation of old wiring and components usually deteriorates with age, and contacts with dust, oil and moisture in environment. Some may have already cracked, exposing bare metal parts to environment. Electrical conductors do become corroded and contacts can become loose. This can cause sparking and overheating.

Sometimes, a fire is burning at its correct place, for example, at a stove. If there is an accidental spillage of fuel somewhere, it can cause flame to spread to another place. LPG hose leaks can cause a fire from gas stove to spread to hose and surrounding furniture. Leaking kerosene stove with dripping kerosene can cause fire from stove to spread to table or floor. Sometimes accidental breakage of a bottle of a spirit lamp may splash fuel all around and cause a fire to spread rapidly.

Accidents like these do happen, but they can still be avoided.

None of these fires can occur if there is no fuel to catch fire. Careful segregation of heat from fuel will ensure that fires will not spread. Even if it were to start, it will not be sufficient for fire to spread. When dealing with open fires like these, it is essential that no other combustible materials be nearby. So even if there is an accidental spillage, effects could be minimized.

The presence of a rich oxygen source can often cause a spontaneous fire. Chemicals like potassium permanganate, hydrogen peroxide can produce oxygen under certain conditions. These chemicals are often kept in homes for medical purposes. Sometimes oily rags throw around place can catch fire by themselves because of chemical reactions.

Storage of chemicals must be controlled because mixing of certain chemicals sometimes produces heat. Storage of paint, thinner, turpentine, methylated spirit and other solvents must also be well controlled. It is good to be aware of chemicals we use around house. Nail polish, lighter fluid, aerosol for paint or insecticide may contain very volatile inflammable materials.

Aerosols must be used carefully. Small particles are easily combustible. Even organic powders can be dangerous. A bowl of flour is very safe by itself, but if powder is allowed to be blown in air to form a haze, it can be easily ignited if there is a source of heat.

The sun can also produce a tremendous amount of heat. We experience this when we step into a car exposed to afternoon sun. It may just need a small quantity of extra heat to start a fire. Looking around for ways of reducing chances of oxygen-rich atmosphere forming anywhere around fuel and heat can help a lot in preventing unwanted fires from happening. However, sometimes it is unexpected that causes fires...

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· Burning of candles, garden refuse, incense, mosquito coils and other open burning - The sources of heat is quite obvious. When we do any open burning, make sure that source of heat is not able to reach other surrounding materials. It is good practice to clear area before doing open burning. We must also think about how to control fire if it gets too big. Be ready to dose fire with water if it gets too big.

We know that we need a source of heat, a fuel, and oxygen in order to have a fire. Other than looking at all places where we encounter sources of heat, it is good preventive practice to store easily combustible materials safely. Some materials do not need a lot of heat in order to ignite, while some materials can be kept at quite high temperatures without any fire occurring. We need to identify easily combustible materials and keep them out of harms way.

Some materials in home are known to be easily combustible. It is advisable to store these materials in a cool and isolated place away from house if possible. Should a fire occur by any chance, they will have less opportunity to spread. Below are a list of commonly used inflammable materials in home. However, list is not exhaustible:

· Paints, turpentine, spirit, aerosols for spray paints. · Kerosene, petrol, diesel, and other oils used for fuel. · Aerosols used for pesticides · Paper and wood, especially when dry · Vegetable oils used in cooking · Other solvents like nail polish

There are other materials that can catch fire if brought to a source of heat. Some of them are listed below. The best way to handle these is to do regular house cleaning to remove them:

· Loose organic dust like sawdust, cotton dust, woolen dust · Oily deposits from atmosphere · Dust and deposits from insects

Involving Others

Sometimes, even though we have taken all precautions, fires can still come from a neighbor's house. Sometimes, it can even come from sky in form of fireworks! Sometimes sparks from a neighbor's rubbish fire can fly over to your own home and cause a fire.

So it is simply not enough that you alone know how to prevent fires. The people around you should also know about fire prevention.

Everybody needs to be educated in fire prevention. When a fire happens in neighborhood, there is a very real possibility that fire can spread to surrounding houses. It is essential that no fires at all start in any of houses in neighborhood or even community.

When everyone understands grave consequences of their actions, fire risk becomes more manageable.

Children are especially high potential fire starters if they are not taught about risks. With their natural curiosity, playing with fire comes naturally to them at some point in their life. Adults have responsibility to impart knowledge of fire prevention and consequences of fire to them quite early in their growing up years.

In order for adults to have this knowledge themselves, relevant authorities should organize courses on fire safety and fire safety awareness campaigns. The media, including newspapers, magazines, television and radio, has an important role to play in getting message of fire prevention to general public. Their message should be able to reach masses and ingrain in them importance of fire prevention.

The message of fire prevention should be delivered continuously over a long period of time. A fire safety campaign should only be considered successful when people considers fire prevention a natural thing to do. It must become habit and a daily way of life. Then only can lives and properties be secured.

The knowledge of fire prevention is even more important than fire detection and fire fighting. If a fire does not start, or is prevented from starting, there is no longer any need for fire detection and fire fighting. Everybody should be preventing fires even before it can start.

Is prevention enough?

Sometimes, we have done best we can. We have isolated sources of heat. We have stored away inflammable materials away from sources of heat. We have done whatever we can to best of our knowledge.

Can a fire still start?

Incidents of fire can still happen. For example, a mouse in your house may decide to chew on your highly powered electrical wires, or a lizard may managed to crawl into your electrical switchboard and cause a short circuit, or hot weather may cause weeds and bushes around your house to catch fire.

So while steps taken for prevention of fires will keep us safe most of time, it is also good to be prepared in case a fire still starts despite our actions.

There are portable smoke detectors available in market for those who want to have an early warning when a fire starts. This can in fact be considered prevention too - preventing a large fire. These smoke detectors will be able to alert occupants about any small fires so that it can be put off before it becomes large and unmanageable. It can prevent loss of property and lives. Any fires detected early have a very good chance of being extinguished.

It is also good to keep a portable fire extinguisher at home for purpose of putting out small fires. For home, most suitable portable fire extinguisher to keep is a dry powder extinguisher because it will be able to handle all likely classes of fires found in home. It can be used to put out fires involving solid materials like wood and paper, oils and even electrical fires without risk of electrical shocks.

In conclusion, when we are able to instill awareness of fire prevention to all people around us, we will have won battle with fire. Fire becomes our ally and we can tap its benefits without worrying about its consequences.

Fire becomes our friend and not our foe.

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