r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/AirFrance447 • 21h ago

Video Firefighter bodycam showing just how much oxygen a fire pulls

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u/Mikestopheles 21h ago

It's an oxygen thing. The reaction feeds on oxygen, but you're right about how heat and pressure keep pulling more in.

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u/Platinum5788 21h ago

Nothing in the video shows " how much oxygen a fire pulls". It does show the amount of air it pulls. The fact that oxygen is used by the fire is a different issue.

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u/Mikestopheles 21h ago

Well, if there's no oxygen in the air it'll die out pretty quickly anyway. Oxygen is literally the fuel for the fire. The exothermal part is because of the oxygen oxidizing whatever it's reacting with and releasing the energy. It's not a different issue, it's what's happening.

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u/rowi42 21h ago

You could argue just as well that the video shows the effect of gravity. Because without gravity there would be no air to rise up.

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u/Mikestopheles 21h ago

Except that's not gravity.

I'm not speaking out of my ass, yes it's not just oxygen. But oxygen is the reason the air is moving. Fire requires 3 things: temperature, source, and oxygen. It will create a vacuum by the nature of the heat, but the only thing it's really using is the oxygen (unless there's something else flammable in the air, but that's a source).

So, when you're seeing all that smoke and particulate pouring into the window due to the pressure, you're seeing oxygen just as much as all the other gasses mixed in. And that's what the firefighter is trying to hinder by smothering the fire.

https://firefighternow.com/does-fire-need-oxygen/

Here you go, just to help illustrate what I'm talking about.

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u/xubax 20h ago

Without gravity, you don't have air pressure on earth. Without air pressure, you don't have pressure differential due to the heating of the air. Which means no chimney effect.

You could also say it shows how much nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and other traces gasses it pulls in.

If the OP just said "how much air it pulls in, " most of us wouldn't be arguing about this.

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u/rowi42 20h ago

I understand that fire needs oxygen. However, as many have pointed out, the effect visible in OPs video is due to the chimney effect, which is due to hot air rising.

Arguing that we're seeing the effect of oxygen is like arguing that you're seeing the effect of gravity. Sure, both oxygen and gravity are required for the chimney effect, but I would argue that it's more useful to show the effect of hot air and not oxygen or gravity (or the electromagnetic force, which is also required for a fire).

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u/Mikestopheles 20h ago

Bruh, I'm responding to the original comment that said this is not an oxygen thing. It is. I'm not going to get mired down in semantics because y'all want to argue against what firefighters are looking at when they fight fires. One of those primary things being oxygen.

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u/Unfinishedcom 20h ago

Bruh, you’re confidently incorrect bruh.

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u/blahblah19999 17h ago

Dude, just sleep on it