• Question: What is fire made out of?

    Asked by Zealousy to Rob on 15 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Rob Temperton

      Rob Temperton answered on 15 Jun 2015:

      Awesome question. I love fire. Flames are something that still to this day fascinate me!

      I am not an expert and is partly an educated guess, but I think flames are simply caused by the burning of gasses. If are burning a candle or some coal, flammable gasses are released which burn pretty much straight away due to the heat. The flames are this burning gas.

      Does that answer your question?

      On an aside, flames are also something that are interesting to experts. Nasa have done a bunch of experiments with flames in space – it turns out that without gravity, the flame from a burning object is spherical!

      Rob

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