149 Fun Facts About Fire

Chemically speaking, fire is the rapid what of a fuel?

Fire is rapid oxidation: fuel combines with oxygen in an exothermic reaction that releases heat and light once the fuel reaches its ignition temperature.

What are the three elements of the fire triangle?

The fire triangle is heat, fuel and an oxidising agent such as oxygen; remove any one and the fire goes out. The fire tetrahedron adds a fourth side, the chemical chain reaction.

What shape does a flame take in the microgravity of space?

In microgravity a flame is spherical: with no buoyant convection hot gas does not rise, so the flame spreads evenly in all directions, burning bluer and slower than on Earth.

When a hydrocarbon flame gets enough air, what colour does it turn?

With enough air the flame turns blue, as on a Bunsen burner with its air hole open: complete combustion leaves no glowing soot, which is what makes a candle flame yellow.

Who proposed in 1777 that combustion involves a component of air he named oxygène?

Antoine Lavoisier coined the name oxygène in 1777 and showed that burning is combination with it, overturning Georg Stahl's phlogiston theory that had dominated chemistry since the early 1700s.

Which Hindu god of fire receives the offerings poured into the Vedic sacrificial flame?

Agni is the Vedic god of fire and the messenger who carries offerings to the other gods; the Rigveda's very first hymn is addressed to him.

At a 400,000-year-old site in England, early humans made fire by striking flint against which mineral?

Fire-cracked handaxes and burnt soil were found alongside the pyrite fragments.

In Greek myth, how did Zeus punish Prometheus for giving fire to humans?

The liver grew back each night; ancient Greeks thought it was the seat of the emotions.

Which Roman goddess's sacred flame was tended by six virgin priestesses?

Vesta, goddess of the hearth, had her eternal flame kept by the Vestal Virgins, chosen before puberty and overseen by the pontifex maximus.

Which religion holds fire so sacred that its places of worship are known as fire temples?

Zoroastrianism keeps a consecrated fire, atar, burning in its fire temples as a symbol of Ahura Mazda; Iran's Yazd Atash Behram has held its flame since the fifth century.

The Great Fire of London began in 1666 in a bakery on which street?

Thomas Farriner's bakery caught fire shortly after midnight on Sunday 2 September.

How many deaths from the Great Fire of London are traditionally recorded?

Only six deaths were officially recorded, though historians suspect many poor and elderly victims went uncounted; the fire destroyed about 13,200 houses and 87 parish churches.

Roughly how many people did the Great Chicago Fire of October 1871 kill?

About 300 people died in the Great Chicago Fire of 8–10 October 1871, which burned roughly 3.3 square miles of the city and left about 100,000 residents homeless.

How many firefighters did the Chicago Fire Department have to protect the whole city in 1871?

Chicago had just 185 firefighters and 17 horse-drawn steam pumpers in 1871, for a city of about 300,000 people, and the crews were exhausted from a large fire the night before.

The Peshtigo Fire, history's deadliest wildfire, struck which state on the same day as the Chicago fire?

Between 1,500 and 2,500 died, at least five times Chicago's toll, but the telegraph lines burned first so few noticed.

The 1657 Great Fire of Meireki destroyed 60 to 70 percent of which city?

Legend blames a priest cremating a cursed kimono; over 100,000 people died in the fire and the blizzard that followed.

A gigantic fire whirl killed about 38,000 people in Tokyo in the aftermath of which 1923 disaster?

The Great Kantō earthquake of 1 September 1923 spawned a fire whirl that swept a former army clothing depot where refugees had gathered, killing about 38,000 people in minutes.

A coal-seam fire has burned beneath which anthracite-country town since at least May 1962?

Centralia, Pennsylvania, sits above a coal-seam fire burning since May 1962; the town was condemned, its ZIP code revoked, and the population fell from over 1,000 to five by 2017.

Roughly what share of wildfires in the United States are started by people rather than lightning?

About 85 percent of US wildland fires are human-caused: campfires, debris burning, equipment sparks, discarded cigarettes and arson. Lightning starts most of the rest, though lightning fires tend to burn larger areas.

How many people died in Australia's Black Saturday bushfires of February 2009?

More than 2,000 homes were lost in Victoria.

Which English chemist invented the first commercially successful friction match around 1826?

He worked in Stockton-on-Tees; Charles Sauria later added white phosphorus, which caused 'phossy jaw' in match workers.

The key innovation of the safety match was putting which substance on a separate striking surface?

The safety match moved red phosphorus onto the striking strip, leaving the head with potassium chlorate; Gustaf Erik Pasch patented the idea in Sweden in 1844.

Zippo lighters have been made since 1932 in Bradford, in which state?

Zippo lighters have been made in Bradford, Pennsylvania, since George Blaisdell founded the company in 1932; he chose the name because he liked the sound of the word 'zipper'.

At which German university, newly fitted with coal-gas lines, was the Bunsen burner designed in the 1850s?

Robert Bunsen designed the burner with instrument maker Peter Desaga at the University of Heidelberg in 1854–55, once the new laboratory was piped for coal gas.

The first fire extinguisher on record was patented in England in 1723 by which chemist?

Ambrose Godfrey, a London chemist, patented the first recorded fire extinguisher in 1723: a cask of extinguishing liquid with a pewter chamber of gunpowder, set off by fuses to scatter the liquid.

Frederick Graff, who patented the first cast-iron fire hydrants in 1801, ran which city's water works?

Frederick Graff was chief engineer of the Philadelphia Water Works when he designed the post-type cast-iron hydrant around 1801; his patent records were lost in the 1836 Patent Office fire.

Which ancient Alexandrian inventor is credited with building the first fire pump?

Ctesibius of Alexandria, working around 270 BC, devised a twin-cylinder force pump that could throw a continuous jet of water; Hero of Alexandria later described the device.

The first automatic electric fire alarm was patented in 1890 by an associate of which inventor?

Francis Robbins Upton, a mathematician who worked for Thomas Edison at Menlo Park, patented the first automatic electric fire alarm in 1890; the first affordable home smoke detector followed in 1965.

Ionisation smoke detectors typically use which radioactive isotope?

Swiss physicist Walter Jaeger stumbled on the principle in the 1930s when his cigarette smoke upset a poison-gas sensor.

The Olympic torch relay was introduced at which Games?

The torch relay was introduced for Berlin 1936, devised by organiser Carl Diem; runners carried the flame from Olympia to Berlin. A symbolic flame had first burned on Amsterdam's Marathon Tower in 1928.

The modern Olympic flame is lit in Olympia before the ruins of a sanctuary to which goddess?

In antiquity extra fires were lit at the temples of Zeus and Hera every four years during the Games.

Guy Fawkes Night bonfires on 5 November commemorate the foiling of which 1605 conspiracy?

The Gunpowder Plot aimed to blow up James I at the opening of Parliament on 5 November 1605; Guy Fawkes was caught with the barrels beneath the House of Lords and Londoners lit bonfires to celebrate.

Burning Man's wooden effigy is torched in which Nevada location?

The temporary Black Rock City has risen there since 1990, about 100 miles north of Reno.

Which Byzantine naval weapon could burn on water and had a recipe so secret it has been lost?

Greek fire, first used by the Byzantine navy in the 670s against Arab fleets, was sprayed through siphons and kept burning on the sea; its formula was a state secret and is now lost.

Napalm was developed in 1942 by a team under Louis Fieser at which university?

Its name blends naphthenic and palmitic acids, the salts used to thicken the gel.

The earliest known reference to firewalking comes from which culture, around 1200 BC?

The earliest known reference to firewalking comes from Iron Age India around 1200 BC; walkers survive because coals and ash conduct heat poorly, not through mind over matter.

Roman candles of antiquity were true dipped candles made from tallow and what?

Beeswax was expensive and reserved for the elite and churches; paraffin came in the modern era.

What is the crime of deliberately setting fire to someone's property called?

Arson is the crime of intentionally setting fire to property; under English common law it originally covered only the malicious burning of another person's dwelling.

Flames from hydrocarbon fuels consist mainly of what?

A hydrocarbon flame is mostly carbon dioxide, water vapour, oxygen and nitrogen: the products of burning plus the unreacted part of the air, with glowing soot particles supplying the yellow light.

Fire is one of the four classical elements alongside which three?

Empedocles named earth, water, air and fire as the four roots of all matter in the fifth century BC, and they loosely match the solid, liquid, gas and plasma states.

In Exodus, in what burning form did God first speak to Moses on Mount Horeb?

God spoke to Moses from a burning bush that was not consumed by the flames, in Exodus chapter 3; the pillar of fire came later, guiding the Israelites by night.

Which fire-suppressant chemical, phased out under the Montreal Protocol, works by interrupting the combustion chain reaction?

Halon, a bromine-containing gas, interrupts the free-radical chain reaction of combustion rather than smothering it; production was banned from 1994 because it destroys stratospheric ozone.

When fire strips protective vegetation, what does heavy rainfall then cause?

With the vegetation and litter gone, heavy rain causes soil erosion and debris flows on burned slopes, which is why hillside communities fear the first winter storms after a fire.

What are the hot, glowing remains of a fire called once the flames have died?

Embers are the glowing, flameless remains of burned wood or coal; they can stay hot enough to reignite a fire for hours, which is why campfires are doused rather than left to die.

What must solid materials like wood do first before they burn?

Wood must first break down by pyrolysis into flammable gases; it is those gases that burn as flame, and their heat drives more pyrolysis in the solid beneath.

What toxic gas is produced when there is not enough oxygen for complete combustion?

Incomplete combustion produces carbon monoxide, a colourless, odourless gas that binds to haemoglobin about 200 times more strongly than oxygen; some carbon is also left as soot.

What is the exact amount of air needed for complete combustion called?

Stoichiometric or theoretical air is the exact quantity that would burn a fuel completely with no oxygen left over; real burners run with excess air because perfect mixing is impossible.

What is a firefighter who parachutes into remote wildfires called?

Smokejumpers parachute into remote wildfires to attack them while they are small; the US Forest Service made its first operational jumps in Idaho in 1940.

Which metal burns with a brilliant white light and was used in early photographic flash powder?

Magnesium burns with an intense white light; ground magnesium mixed with an oxidiser made the flash powder photographers used from the 1880s until flashbulbs took over.

Which ceiling device sprays water automatically once a fire's heat bursts its glass bulb?

A fire sprinkler head opens when heat bursts its glass bulb or melts a fusible link; only the heads directly over the fire open, not the whole building at once.

What is a low-intensity wildfire burning leaf litter and grass on the forest floor called?

A surface or crawling fire burns the litter, grass and low shrubs on the forest floor at low intensity; ground fires smoulder in the duff beneath, while crown fires race through the canopy.

What is a deliberately set, controlled wildfire used in forest management called?

A prescribed burn mitigates fire risk and promotes natural forest cycles, but can turn into a wildfire if it escapes containment.

Which August wildfire scorched some three million acres of Idaho and Montana in just two days?

The Great Fire of 1910, the Big Burn, swept about three million acres of Idaho and Montana on 20–21 August 1910, killing 87 people and shaping decades of US Forest Service fire-suppression policy.

What is the primary cause of death for people caught in indoor fires?

Smoke inhalation kills more fire victims than burns do: carbon monoxide in the smoke displaces oxygen from the blood, and many victims are overcome in their sleep before the flames reach them.

What is smoke, physically?

Smoke is an aerosol: solid and liquid particulates suspended in the hot gases given off by combustion or pyrolysis, including soot, tar droplets and ash.

Which Greek god of fire and the forge made armour for Achilles?

Hephaestus, the lame smith-god of fire and metalworking, forged Achilles' armour and shield in the Iliad; the Romans called him Vulcan.

What process draws melted wax up to a candle's flame?

Capillary action draws the melted wax up the wick's fibres to the flame, where it vaporises and burns; that is why a candle needs its wick and not just a pool of wax.

Which two main kinds of match exist?

Safety matches need a specially prepared striking surface.

The English word 'match' derives from which French word?

'Match' comes from Old French meiche, modern mèche, meaning a wick; in English it meant a lamp or cannon wick for centuries before friction matches appeared in the 1820s.

Which Swedish financier, nicknamed the Match King, built a global match monopoly in the 1920s?

Ivar Kreuger controlled about two thirds of the world's match production through Swedish Match and loans to governments; his empire collapsed in fraud and he shot himself in Paris in 1932.

The 1888 London matchgirls' strike was against conditions at which company's factory?

About 1,400 women and girls walked out of Bryant & May's match factory in Bow in July 1888 over fines, low pay and phosphorus poisoning; the strike won concessions within three weeks.

Where was the oldest secure evidence of human fire use, about a million years old, found?

Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa's Northern Cape holds burned bone and plant ash about one million years old, found 30 metres inside, far beyond the reach of any natural wildfire.

Roughly how old is the oldest likely evidence of cooking, found in the Golan Heights?

Heated carp teeth from Gesher Benot Ya'aqov in the Golan Heights, reported in 2022, suggest fish were cooked about 780,000 years ago, far earlier than the 170,000-year-old cooked plant remains previously known.

What term describes substances that ignite spontaneously at ambient temperature?

Pyrophoric substances, such as white phosphorus and finely divided iron, ignite spontaneously in air at ordinary temperatures because their autoignition point is below room temperature.

What does a substance's autoignition point describe?

It supplies the activation energy for combustion.

Which Hindu spring festival opens with a bonfire the night before coloured powders are thrown?

Holi begins with Holika Dahan, a bonfire on the eve of the festival recalling the burning of the demoness Holika; the next day people throw coloured powders and water.

In Norse myth, which fire giant leads the assault that burns the world at Ragnarök?

Surtr, guardian of fiery Muspelheim, leads its hosts against the gods at Ragnarök, kills Freyr and sets the world ablaze with his flaming sword.

What is a backdraft?

A backdraft is the sudden burning of superheated, oxygen-starved gases when fresh air rushes in, as when a door is opened on a smouldering room; the 1991 film took its title from it.

What is a flashover?

A small flame can reach flashover in 3-5 minutes.

At roughly what temperature does flashover normally occur for ordinary combustibles?

Flashover typically occurs when the gas layer at ceiling level reaches about 500 to 600 degrees Celsius, at the point where a fire moves from its growth stage to fully developed.

Which three-word safety drill tells you what to do if your clothes catch fire?

'Stop, drop and roll' teaches people to stop moving, drop to the ground and roll to smother flames on their clothing; running only fans the fire.

Under which Chinese ruling house did the earliest fireworks appear?

The earliest documented fireworks were sold by market vendors in Song-dynasty China (960–1279), made from gunpowder packed into paper tubes; earlier Han people threw bamboo into fires for a bang.

Compounds of which element give fireworks their green colour?

Barium salts such as barium chloride burn green in fireworks; strontium gives red, sodium yellow and copper compounds blue.

What defines a firestorm?

A firestorm is a fire so intense that it creates and sustains its own wind system, drawing air inward from every direction toward the centre and feeding the flames.

Operation Gomorrah's July 1943 raids created a firestorm that killed about 37,000 in which German city?

Operation Gomorrah's raids on Hamburg in late July 1943 created a firestorm with hurricane-force winds that killed about 37,000 people, the first of the war's great city firestorms.

What gear do firefighters wear to avoid inhaling toxic fumes inside a burning building?

A self-contained breathing apparatus carries its own air supply, because the combustion environment firefighters enter is toxic.

In the US system, ordinary solids like wood and paper make which kind of fire?

Class A fires involve ordinary solid combustibles such as wood, paper and cloth, and are the ones water puts out; the letter classes were defined by the NFPA.

In the US system, cooking oils and fats make which kind of fire?

Cooking oils and fats are Class K in the US system, fought with wet-chemical extinguishers that saponify the hot oil; Europe and Australia label the same class F.

Which category covers fires of burning combustible metals?

Combustible metals such as titanium, sodium and lithium are Class D fires; water can make them worse, so they are smothered with dry powders such as sodium chloride or graphite.

Which English word comes from the Latin for 'hearth'?

Focus is the Latin word for a hearth or fireplace; Kepler adopted it in 1604 for the point where rays converge, and the everyday sense of 'centre of attention' followed.

Which fire-resistant mineral was widely used in insulation and brake linings before its cancer link?

Asbestos, a fibrous silicate mineral, resists fire and heat and was used in insulation, fireproofing and brake linings until its fibres were shown to cause mesothelioma and lung cancer.

Who buried wine and a Parmesan cheese in his garden during the Great Fire of London?

Samuel Pepys recorded on 4 September 1666 that he dug a pit in his garden and buried his wine and his Parmesan cheese to save them from the advancing fire.

Whose hesitation delayed the firebreaks that might have checked the Great Fire of London?

Lord Mayor Thomas Bloodworth, roused in the night, refused to order houses pulled down and reportedly said a woman could piss the fire out; by the time demolitions began the fire was out of control.

Which great church was destroyed by the Great Fire of London?

Old St Paul's Cathedral burned on 4 September 1666, its lead roof running molten into the streets; Christopher Wren's replacement was completed in 1710.

What did the Tower of London garrison use to make effective firebreaks against the Great Fire?

The Tower of London garrison used gunpowder to blow up houses in the fire's path, creating firebreaks wide enough to hold; together with the easterly wind dropping, that halted the blaze on 5 September.

Which Chicago landmark, completed in 1869, famously survived the Great Chicago Fire?

The limestone Chicago Water Tower on Michigan Avenue, completed in 1869, was one of the few public buildings in the burn zone to survive the 1871 fire and still stands as a memorial.

Which legendary culprit is popularly blamed for starting the Great Chicago Fire?

Legend blames Mrs. O'Leary's cow for kicking over a lantern in her DeKoven Street barn, where the fire did start; reporter Michael Ahern later admitted he made the cow story up, and Chicago exonerated the O'Learys in 1997.

How many structures did the Great Chicago Fire destroy?

The Great Chicago Fire destroyed about 17,000 structures across roughly 3.3 square miles between 8 and 10 October 1871, leaving about a third of the city's 300,000 residents homeless.

In the UK colour code, which colour band marks a carbon dioxide fire extinguisher?

British extinguishers are red with a coloured band for the agent: black for carbon dioxide, cream for foam, blue for dry powder and yellow for wet chemical.

In a stored-pressure fire extinguisher, where is the expellant gas kept?

In a stored-pressure extinguisher the expellant gas, usually nitrogen or air, sits in the same chamber as the agent, so the gauge reads the whole unit; cartridge types release gas from a separate cartridge when struck.

What does the acronym PASS tell someone to do with a fire extinguisher?

PASS stands for pull the pin, aim at the base of the fire, squeeze the handle and sweep from side to side, the standard drill taught for portable extinguishers.

In which year were the first photoelectric smoke detectors patented?

Donald Steele and Robert Emmark of Electro Signal Lab patented the photoelectric smoke detector in 1972; it senses smoke scattering a light beam onto a sensor inside the unit.

Which fire-starting device spins a wooden spindle with a bow to create friction heat?

A bow drill spins a wooden spindle against a fireboard using a bow and cord; the friction produces a glowing ember that is tipped into tinder. A fire piston uses compression, a burning glass sunlight.

Which 1974 disaster film starring Steve McQueen and Paul Newman is set in a burning skyscraper?

The Towering Inferno (1974) traps its cast at the opening party of a 138-storey San Francisco tower; Steve McQueen plays the fire chief and Paul Newman the architect.

Which hero eventually freed the chained Titan from his torment?

Heracles shot the eagle and freed Prometheus while crossing the Caucasus on his way to fetch the golden apples of the Hesperides, with Zeus's consent.

Who lit the Olympic cauldron at the 1996 Atlanta Games?

Muhammad Ali, his hands shaking from Parkinson's, took the torch from swimmer Janet Evans and lit the Atlanta cauldron on 19 July 1996.

Which city's 2008 Olympic torch relay carried the flame to the summit of Mount Everest?

A Chinese mountaineering team carried the Beijing 2008 Olympic flame to the summit of Mount Everest on 8 May 2008, using a special torch designed to burn in thin air.

Which archer lit the Olympic cauldron with a flaming arrow at Barcelona 1992?

Paralympic archer Antonio Rebollo fired a flaming arrow over the Barcelona cauldron on 25 July 1992; the gas had been turned on so the arrow's passage lit it.

Kurt Vonnegut survived the February 1945 firebombing of which German city as a prisoner of war?

Vonnegut, a captured US infantryman, survived the 13–15 February 1945 bombing of Dresden in an underground meat locker, the experience behind Slaughterhouse-Five.

Who founded the Union Fire Company, Philadelphia's first volunteer fire brigade, in 1736?

Benjamin Franklin organised the Union Fire Company in Philadelphia in 1736 after publishing warnings about fire hazards in the Pennsylvania Gazette; members kept leather buckets and bags ready.

At what temperature range does napalm burn?

Napalm burns at roughly 800 to 1,200 degrees Celsius and clings to whatever it lands on, which is why its gel was prized for flamethrowers and incendiary bombs.

What colour is the retardant slurry that aircraft drop on wildfires?

Aerial fire retardant is dyed red with iron oxide so pilots and ground crews can see where it has landed; the ammonium phosphate slurry slows burning on the vegetation it coats.

In which Canadian province did the 2016 wildfire that emptied Fort McMurray burn?

The May 2016 wildfire forced about 88,000 people out of Fort McMurray, Alberta, and destroyed some 2,400 buildings, the costliest disaster in Canadian insurance history.

In New York City slang, what is a fire hydrant called?

New Yorkers call a fire hydrant a Johnny Pump; opening one to cool off in a summer heatwave is a city tradition, and the FDNY issues spray caps to limit the water wasted.

Which US city's 1904 Great Fire exposed the lack of standard hose couplings between brigades?

Engines rushed to the 1904 Great Baltimore Fire from Washington, Philadelphia and New York could not connect to Baltimore's hydrants, and the fire burned 1,500 buildings over 30 hours.

What caused California's deadly 2018 Camp Fire?

A worn hook on PG&E's Caribou-Palermo transmission line failed on 8 November 2018, dropping a live wire that ignited the Camp Fire; the utility pleaded guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter.

How many people did California's 2018 Camp Fire kill?

The Camp Fire killed 85 people and destroyed nearly 19,000 structures in November 2018, the deadliest wildfire in California's recorded history.

Which Northern California town was mostly destroyed by the 2018 Camp Fire?

Paradise, a Butte County town of about 26,000, lost roughly 90 percent of its homes on 8 November 2018; neighbouring Concow and Magalia were also devastated.

What was the vast palace Nero built on land cleared by the fire called?

Nero's Domus Aurea, the Golden House, sprawled over some 100 acres of burned-out central Rome with its own lake; Vespasian later built the Colosseum on the lake's site.

Near which Roman landmark did the Great Fire of Rome start?

Tacitus says the fire began in shops selling flammable goods along the Circus Maximus, Rome's chariot-racing stadium, and the wind drove it the length of the valley.

Whom did Nero blame for the Great Fire of Rome, per Tacitus?

Tacitus wrote that Nero pinned the blame on the Christian community, who were tortured and executed, some burned alive as torches; it counts as the first imperial persecution of Christians.

Roughly how much of Rome did the Great Fire under Nero destroy?

About three quarters of Rome burned: Tacitus says that of fourteen districts only four escaped, three were levelled and seven left badly damaged.

How many workers died in the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire?

The Triangle Shirtwaist fire of 25 March 1911 killed 146 garment workers in Manhattan, most of them young Italian and Jewish immigrant women, many of whom jumped from the ninth floor.

Why could many Triangle Shirtwaist workers not escape the fire?

Doors were locked to stop breaks and theft.

Which future US labor secretary witnessed the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist fire from the street?

Frances Perkins watched workers jump from the burning factory from Washington Square; she later served as Franklin Roosevelt's labor secretary and called the fire the day the New Deal began.

Who coined the name 'Molotov cocktail' in 1939?

The Finns coined 'Molotov cocktail' during the 1939–40 Winter War, mocking Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov; Finnish state liquor company Alko mass-produced the petrol bombs for the army.

The 'Molotov cocktail' was named a mocking drink to accompany which Soviet weapon?

The Soviet RRAB-3 cluster bomb, which scattered small incendiaries, was nicknamed the Molotov bread basket after the minister claimed Soviet planes were dropping bread; the petrol bomb became the drink to go with it.

What is a Molotov cocktail, physically?

A Molotov cocktail is a glass bottle of petrol or other fuel stoppered with a cloth wick; the wick is lit and the bottle thrown, shattering on impact to spread burning fuel.

Who wrote the 1953 dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451?

Ray Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451 in 1953 on a coin-operated typewriter in the UCLA library basement; the title is the temperature at which he was told book paper catches fire.

In Fahrenheit 451, what job does protagonist Guy Montag hold?

A fireman who burns books, Montag becomes disillusioned and commits himself to preserving the very literature he was meant to destroy.

In Fahrenheit 451, what is the mechanical creature that hunts down people who hide books?

The Mechanical Hound, an eight-legged robot with a poison needle, tracks book-owners for the firemen; the Salamander is the name of the firemen's engine and emblem.

Which hot, dry winds blowing from the desert fan autumn wildfires around Los Angeles?

The Santa Ana winds blow downslope from the Great Basin toward the Southern California coast, warming and drying as they descend; they drove the January 2025 Los Angeles fires.

What term describes seeds, like lodgepole pine's, that need fire's heat to open?

Pyriscent, or serotinous, cones such as lodgepole and jack pine's are sealed with resin that melts in a fire's heat, releasing seeds onto freshly cleared ground.

When are controlled burns usually carried out?

Controlled burns are usually carried out in the cooler months, when moist fuels and mild weather keep the flames low and predictable, reducing the fuel that would feed a summer wildfire.

Roughly how many people have Australian bushfires killed since 1851?

They have also killed billions of animals.

What nickname was given to Australia's 2019–20 bushfire season?

The 2019–20 Black Summer fires burned more than 24 million hectares, killed 33 people directly and an estimated three billion animals; Ash Wednesday (1983) and Black Friday (1939) were earlier disasters.

Which Australian trees have evolved to thrive on bushfire?

Eucalyptus forests are built for fire: the trees resprout from buds under their bark and from lignotubers at their base, and their oily leaves and shed bark help carry the flames.

What is the usual working pressure of a fire hose?

Fire hoses normally work at 8 to 20 bar, roughly 115 to 290 psi; attack hoses are proof-tested well above that and burst at several times their working pressure.

Why is a fire hose hung up to dry after use?

Hoses are hung in a drying tower because standing water inside can degrade them, rotting the woven jacket and breeding mildew; a dry hose also weighs far less to roll and stow.

Fireworks light up American skies on 4 July to celebrate which holiday?

Independence Day fireworks date to the first anniversary of the Declaration in 1777, when Philadelphia marked the night with rockets; John Adams had predicted 'illuminations' in a letter to Abigail.

Fires following a 1906 earthquake destroyed much of which US city?

The 18 April 1906 earthquake ruptured San Francisco's gas and water mains; the fires that followed burned for three days and did most of the damage, destroying about 28,000 buildings.

Which plant nutrient escapes to the air when vegetation burns, not staying in the ash?

Nitrogen is volatilised by fire and lost to the air as gas, while potassium, phosphorus and calcium mostly remain in the ash, which is why freshly burned soils are short of nitrogen.

Which small flame in a gas boiler stays lit to ignite the main burner?

A pilot light is a small gas flame kept burning permanently to light the main burner on demand; a thermocouple sitting in it shuts off the gas if the flame goes out.

What flameless burning can start residential fires on upholstered furniture?

Coal, wood, cotton and foams can all smoulder.

What is burning driven by internal self-heating and thermal runaway called?

Spontaneous combustion happens when a material heats itself faster than it can shed heat, as oil-soaked rags or damp haystacks do, until it reaches ignition with no external flame.

What does burning hydrogen with oxygen, the reaction behind many rocket engines, produce?

Burning hydrogen with oxygen produces only water vapour, releasing about 242 kJ per mole; the Space Shuttle's main engines ran on the same reaction.

Which 7,000-strong corps did Augustus create in AD 6 to fight fires?

Augustus created the Vigiles in AD 6, about 7,000 freedmen organised in seven cohorts who fought fires and also served as a night watch against thieves and runaway slaves.

Which US city established the first professional, paid fire department in 1853?

Cincinnati founded the first fully paid professional fire department in the US on 1 April 1853, after adopting a horse-drawn steam fire engine that volunteers had resisted.

Which Christian festival on 2 February marks the presentation of Jesus at the Temple?

Candlemas, on 2 February, commemorates the presentation of Jesus at the Temple; the year's candles are blessed and carried in procession, a custom credited to Pope Sergius I in the late 600s.

Why did chemists rush to develop napalm and man-made substitutes in WWII?

Early incendiary gels thickened petrol with natural rubber, but Japan had seized the natural rubber plantations of Malaya and the Dutch East Indies in 1942, so Fieser's team devised napalm's aluminium-soap thickener instead.

Which dog breed ran alongside horse-drawn fire engines and became the firehouse mascot?

Dalmatians were bred as hunting dogs in Croatia's Dalmatia region before running as carriage dogs beside horse-drawn fire wagons.

Smokey Bear's slogan was updated in 2001 to say 'Only you can prevent' what?

Wildfires replaced 'forest fires', a wording used since 1947, to reflect blazes in grasslands and other non-forest areas.

The 2019 Notre-Dame fire destroyed the cathedral's wooden spire, known in French as what?

The flèche and most of the wooden roof were lost; much of it was 13th-century oak sheathed in lead, and the stone vaults largely contained the collapsing timbers.

London's Grenfell Tower fire of 2017 began when which household appliance caught fire?

A fridge-freezer in flat 16 on the fourth floor caught fire shortly after midnight; the blaze burned for 60 hours and killed 72 people.

How many people died in the Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire in Boston in 1942?

The Cocoanut Grove fire of 28 November 1942 killed 492 people, the deadliest nightclub fire on record; locked and blocked exits, including a revolving door jammed with bodies, turned a fast fire into mass death.

The 1903 Iroquois Theatre fire in Chicago broke out during a matinee of which musical?

A broken arc lamp lit the muslin curtains in a theatre that had opened just a month earlier billed as 'absolutely fireproof'.

Roughly what share of Yellowstone National Park burned in the 1988 fires?

About 36 percent of Yellowstone, some 793,000 acres, burned in the summer of 1988; on 8 September the park was closed to all non-emergency personnel for the first time in its history.

Which company capped the most Kuwaiti oil-well fires in 1991, despite arriving fourth?

Safety Boss of Calgary, the fourth team to arrive, capped 180 of the roughly 600 burning wells, more than any other firm; most fires were killed with sea water pumped from the Gulf through oil pipelines.

The real bear cub that became Smokey was rescued in 1950 after a wildfire in which state?

New Mexico's Capitan Gap fire left a five-pound, three-month-old cub, who was flown to the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.