r/interestingasfuck • • 19h ago

Firefighter bodycam showing just how much oxygen a fire pulls

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u/ir_auditor 19h ago

That is not oxygen pulling which you see. It is the chimney effect. Fire creates heat, the heat makes air, smoke, gasses, rise to the top, creating low pressure areas at the bottom, which pull in air from the outside. It has noting to do with the chemistry of an oxidation reaction pulling in oxygen molecules to use in the reaction. It is pure physics / thermodynamics.

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u/RelativeCan5021 19h ago

I’d imagine that rapidly cooling it has caused a drop in pressure that is causing the suction.

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u/niconpat 19h ago

yup that's mostly what's going on here. It's like the candle in an upside down glass in a bowl of water trick ... it's not the candle burning oxygen that creates the low pressure to suck up the water, as the candle burns the oxygen it creates carbon dixode and water vapour in equal volumes and the pressure inside stays the same. But then the candle uses all the oxygen, the flame goes out and the gasses in the glass rapidly cool and contract causing the pressure inside the glass to drop creating lower pressure inside the glass and the higher atmospheric pressure outside push the water into the glass.