By Stephen J. Pyne, Arizona State University
What is fire? Usually, it’s defined as the physical chemistry of combustion. The definition matters because it prescribes how we think about fire and what we do with it. If fire is a chemical reaction shaped by its physical surroundings, then we can deconstruct it into its constituent parts. Fuel plus oxygen plus spark equals fire. We can harness it, put it into machines, and contain it by physical countermeasures.
Another perspective might be that fire results from life – biological processes create the oxygen and furnish the fuel. Fire takes apart what plants put together through photosynthesis. Fire’s chemistry is therefore a biochemistry.
