There are many way to cook food. For example, we can cook it with oil, fry it, barbecue it or raw it.However, this post isn't teaching you how to cook the food.
This post is mainly about the FIRE. It is a must-thing to cook food. With fire, many thing can be done such as warm up a cold place and even light up a dark place. However, there are many disadvantage of having fire. Uncontrolled fire is able to destroy homeland of human, even a large area of forest,which is the animal's habitat.
Now, Lets get back to the topic. What exactly is fire? When u light up a candle, u will see the flame dancing through the air. However, it doesn't mean that the flame is a kind of gas, like oxygen and carbon dioxide. Fire can burn a gas such as natural gas, a liquid like petrol or even a solid which can be denoted by the glowing charcoal. But the fire isn't belongs to one of them. In fact, it not even considered as a thing or a matter at all. It is just a way that matter can do.
Characteristic of Fire:
- A rapid chemical reaction.
- Oxidation of combustible matter.
- An exothermic reaction
- Produce reaction product which is carbon dioxide and water.
- Release Heat energy and light energy to surrounding.
- colour of flame vary with the type of impurities in the matter burnt.
- mostly result in conflagration.
Fire is easily to start when there is the combustible material such as fuel with the adequate supply of oxygen or a oxidizer as the substitute of oxygen supply, encounter with enough heat to overcome the activation energy and go through a chain reaction. Once the activation energy is overcomed, The fire is will ignited. The reaction will carry out with sustaining the heat energy by the release the heat energy with the combustion process. It will propagate when there is the continuous supply of fuel and oxygen or oxidizer.
It seems like the above paragraph looks complicated. Now, i will simplify it.
Fuel + Oxygen+ A little bit of heat ---> The Fire lights up!!
then
Fire+ continous fuel and oxygen supply---> More longer period and larger fire!!!
For example, when the petroleum gas, which contain butane, burns, it will produce carbon dioxide and water and release a lot of heat.
2C4H10(g)+13O2(g) →8CO2(g)+10H2O(l)+heat energy
However, fire can easily be extinguished by removing one of the main element from the fire tetrahedron.
When the oxygen is removed, the fuel is unable to combust due to the absent of oxygen to oxidise the fuel. While the absence of fuel will cause the oxygen unable to oxidise anything. And, the activation energy is unable to overcome and the reaction unable to proceed with the absence of heat.
There are few ways to extinguish the fire:
- Application of water as the water absorb the heat from the fuel faster than the combustion generate it.
- Application of carbon dioxide to the fire to remove the oxygen to react with the fuel.
- Application of sand or mud to prevent the oxygen to react and absorb the heat.
Now, lets talk about the categories of fire extinguisher and the type of fire extinguisher, in case, in the future, when you face the fire, you will know which fire extinguisher to use and how to use it.
There are 4 categories of fire extinguisher, based on different type of fire produced by different type of material.
- Class A- used for common materials such as paper, wood,cardboard or most plastic.
- Class B- for flammable or combustible liquid such as gasoline, paint remover, grease, kerosene or oil.
- Class C- for electrical equipement such as appliances, wiring, circuit breakers and outlets.
- Class D-for combustible metal such as magnesium, titanium, potassium and sodium. Usually found in industry and laboratory.
Its time for Fire extinguisher agent to accomplish their mission!! There are 3 common types of fire extinguisher that often used to extinguish the fire.
1)Water -APW(Air-Pressurized-Water) and water mist is used for class A fire. It is used to cool down and absorb the heat from the fire.
2)Dry Chemical - its is suitable for combination of A, B and C class fires.
- BC - regular type of dry chemical extinguisher. Filled with sodium bicarbonate or potassium bicarbonate.
- ABC - multipurpose type of dry chemical extinguisher. Filled with monoammonium phosphate. It is a yellow powder that will leaves sticky residue on the electrical appliances and damage it.
3)Carbon Dioxide - It is used for class B and C fires. It displace the oxygen and prevent the reaction. It contains carbon dioxide, non-flammable gas such as halons and Halotron(FE-36) and are highly pressurized.
Knowing which fire extinguisher but don't know way to use it it just like holding an alien object. There are 4 steps on how to use the extinguisher. To operate the fire extinguisher, you just have to remember the word "PASS"
- Pull the pin
- Aim the fire
- Squeece the lever
- Sweep the nozzle
Everyone can do that and extinguish the fire as long as you have the skill and knowledge on how to use it.
And Finally,
Don't Play with the Fire!! It is dangerous!!
Joke of the days:
Fart so loud wakes the animals 5 miles away, so stinky kills the animals straight away.