The Chemistry of Fire I
This exists in the following forms: chemical, mechanical, electrical, light, and nuclear.
What is energy?
Heat that is produced by electricity.
What is electrical energy?
A cylindrical area above a fire in which heated air and gases rise and travel upward.
What is a thermal column?
Heat transfer by circulation within a medium such as a gas or a liquid.
What is convection?
A fire in combustible metals, such as magnesium, titanium, zirconium, sodium, lithium, and potassium.
What is a Class D fire?
Reactions that result in the release of energy in the form of heat.
What is exothermic?
A chemical process of oxidation that occurs at a rate fast enough to produce heat and usually light in the form of either a glow or a flame.
What is combustion?
The airborne solid and liquid particulates and gases evolved when a material undergoes pyrolysis or combustion, together with the quantity of air that is entrained or otherwise mixed into the mass.
What is smoke?
The movement of heat energy from a hotter medium to a cooler medium by conduction, convection, or radiation.
What is heat transfer?
A fire in ordinary combustible materials, such as wood, cloth, paper, rubber, and many plastic.
What is a Class A fire?
This is a rapid chemical process that produces heat and usually light.
What is fire?
A form of potential energy that can generate heat through friction.
What is mechanical energy?
A toxic gas produced through incomplete combustion.
What is Carbon Monoxide?
The combined process of emission, transmission, and absorption of energy traveling by electromagnetic wave propagation.
What is radiation?
A fire in a cooking appliance that involves combustible cooking media.
What is a Class K fire?
Reactions that absorb heat or require heat to be added.
What is endothermic?
A process in which material is decomposed, or broken down, into simpler molecular compounds by the effects of heat alone.
What is pyrolysis?
The unburned, partially burned, and completely burned substances found in smoke.
What are smoke particles?
The measure of the rate of heat transfer to a surface, typically expressed in kilowatts per meter squared.
What is heat flux?
A fire in flammable liquids, combustible liquids, petroleum greases, tars, oil-based paints, solvents, lacquers, alcohols, and flammable gases.
What is a Class B fire?
Minimum temperature a substance should attain in order to ignite under specific test conditions.
What is the ignition temperature?
A burning process in which the fuel is not completely consumed, usually due to a limited supply of oxygen.
What is incomplete combustion?
A colorless, odorless, electrically nonconductive inert gas that is a suitable medium for extinguishing Class B and Class C fires.
What is Carbon Dioxide?
Heat transfer to another body or within a body by direct contact.
What is conduction?
A fire that involves energized electrical equipment.
What is a Class C fire?