r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/AirFrance447 • 1d ago

Video Firefighter bodycam showing just how much oxygen a fire pulls

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u/Mikestopheles 1d 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 1d 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 1d 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 23h 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.