>>13020826This is honestly one of the dumbest threads I've ever seen. Try extinguishing a butane fire by cooling it off. The flame itself is constantly replacing the heat you remove from the system.
Yes, it's true that fire needs some heat to continue the combustion reaction. For instance, if the wood in a campfire drops below about 300ºC, then the fire can go out, even in abundance of oxygen. But even if a 500 gram chunk of burning firewood (1.76 J/gºC) was 1ºC away from dropping below its ignition temperature, it would still take 210 grams of water to lower the temperature enough to interrupt combustion.
And that's assuming that the fire isn't supplying additional heat, which is constantly would be, at a rate of about 31,000,000 Joules, on the low end.
Oxygen starvation is the primary mechanism by which water extinguishes a fire. I have no idea why so many dumb fucks in this thread who have obviously never taken an introductory level thermodynamics class think otherwise.
