The truth about fire....?

Question

Why is fire orange/fire at the top and blue at the bottom? What is fire made of? and what determines the form of fire?

Answer 1

Chemistry is an interesting thing - fire burns blue at the bottom, because the oxygen mix at the base is replenished by the draft caused by the heat of the fire - it is actually hotter there, than the yellow part of the flame. If you were to sample the yellow flame, you would find carbon particles(assuming we are talking about a flame from a candle, gas, oil, wood, or even alcohol.) if you adjust a gas stove's mixture you can make the flame yellow by putting more gas into the burner than it's oxygen supply can burn. The top of the flame has expanded (adiabatic expansion is a reasonably close approximation for this effect) so the temperature drops, cooling the blue flame to yellow. The remaining carbon, in the form of soot helps provide the yellow color as well.
If you were to burn a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen - there is no particulate remaining, and the resulting gas is superheated steam, (which is invisible to the naked eye) so the flame is invisible)... Look at a shuttle launch camera which shows the main engines - you can almost look up the nozzles, as opposed to the solid boosters which have white hot flame coming out. (The hydrogen is actually at a much higher temperature!)

Answer 2

Fire is a chemical chain reaction. Rust is a very slow form of this chain reaction (oxidation). Oxidation at a faster rate than rust or fire is an explosion. The material itself is not burning, the vapors given off of the material during this oxidation process are what is burning.
The colors are different due to different amounts of oxygen in the flame. Strike a match (if your not a child, if you are get help from your parents). Look at the flame, it is not actually touching the match stick, the match stick is oxidizing (chain reaction) and the vapors given off of the match stick are whats burning. The flame is just the luminus part of the fire.

Answer 3

Flames are where vapors released by heat are oxidized. Flames give off light because of the heat and chemical reactions as the vapors are combusted. As the electrons in the various reactions change energy states, they release different colors. Blue is higher energy and so blue light is released in an area that is operating at higher temperatures and thus the energy change for the electrons is greater. Red and orange would be in areas of lower temperature reactions.

There may be other contributions to the light of the flames.

Answer 4

Actually, none of the previous answers is correct.

The actual color of a fire is invisible. You know the waves you see off the ground on a hot day? It's kind of like that.

The energy waves off of the fire are what give it color to the human eye. The normal human eye can only see color in the visible spectrum. And different colors have different wavelenghts. When you look at the fire, you see the waves of energy at different wavelengths.

Make sense? Another thing. The color given off from flame off wood is different from the flame of a metal. Why?

Answer 5

The bottom of a fire is where the fire is burning its source. for example, if there was a fire burning on wood, the bootom of the fire would be blue ecause it is hotter and stronger at that point because its closer to the point of energy. As the fire extends upward, it moves farther away from its energy source, and therefore becomes weaker and cooler, and changes color to orange or red.

there are 4 forms of matter, the 3 common ones, and plasma. Fire is in the state of plasma. to change states of matter, you must add energy to the prievious state of matter. For example, to turn ice(solid) into water(liquid), add heat. to turn water(liquid) into steam(gas), add heat. and in this case, to turn oxygen(gas) into fire(plasma) add a concentrated carbon creator (a match and a striking board) onto an object.

Answer 6

That's really intriguing. I never thought about it before. Maybe since heat always rises, the blue fire is slightly less hot? Or it might be the chemistry in what is burning---in fact, something has suddenly popped up in my memory that tells me I've heard about this in relation to fireworks and other things.

Answer 7

colors determined by temperature of flame. fire made of hot gases. "form of fire"? no clue.

Answer 8

this is area of the storyline. they are going to likely connect forces with Nash and variety some style of team to take down Triple H with Johnny Ace, Steph, or Vince as their company chief.

Answer 9

It is dangerous