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The note and link below were forwarded to me.
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This is a very dramatic and short 30-second clip shows how to properly and improperly deal with a common kitchen fire: oil aflame in a pan.
“At firefighting training school they would demonstrate this with a deep fat fryer out on the fire field. An instructor in a fire suit and using an 8 oz cup at the end of a 10 foot pole would toss water onto the grease fire. The water, being heavier than the oil, sinks to the bottom where it
instantly becomes superheated. The explosive force of the steam blows the burning oil up and out. On the open field, it became a thirty foot high fireball that resembled a nuclear blast. Inside the confines of a kitchen, the fire ball hits the ceiling and fills the entire room.
Also, do not throw sugar or flour on a grease fire. One cup creates the explosive force of two sticks of dynamite.”
www.ranaldofamily.com/SWF/Kit...Fire.wmv
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I checked at Snopes.com to see if this tidbit is rated "partially true," as I expect, but did not find it listed.
If the writer is talking about a cup of flour aerosolized and ignited while suspended in the air, as with lycopodium powder, then I can at least see where s/he might be led to think a cup of flour has the explosive force bound in two sticks of dynamite -certainly an entire cup of fine particles from just about any flammable material would make a dangerously large flash and bang if ignited while suspended in air. But would the resultant explosive force actually be equivalent to that liberated from two sticks of dynamite? I wonder. Likewise, while sugar does have a relatively large amount of chemical energy bound in the molecule, would simply tossing a cup of sugar into a pan of flaming oil release two dynamite sticks' worth of explosive force? This seems unlikely. Alfred Nobel would have made his fortune that way rather than with TNT if so, it would seem.
My heart goes out to the gal who discovered the part about water and flaming oil the hard way.
Any comments on the "two sticks of dynamite" portion?
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This is a very dramatic and short 30-second clip shows how to properly and improperly deal with a common kitchen fire: oil aflame in a pan.
“At firefighting training school they would demonstrate this with a deep fat fryer out on the fire field. An instructor in a fire suit and using an 8 oz cup at the end of a 10 foot pole would toss water onto the grease fire. The water, being heavier than the oil, sinks to the bottom where it
instantly becomes superheated. The explosive force of the steam blows the burning oil up and out. On the open field, it became a thirty foot high fireball that resembled a nuclear blast. Inside the confines of a kitchen, the fire ball hits the ceiling and fills the entire room.
Also, do not throw sugar or flour on a grease fire. One cup creates the explosive force of two sticks of dynamite.”
www.ranaldofamily.com/SWF/Kit...Fire.wmv
========================================================
I checked at Snopes.com to see if this tidbit is rated "partially true," as I expect, but did not find it listed.
If the writer is talking about a cup of flour aerosolized and ignited while suspended in the air, as with lycopodium powder, then I can at least see where s/he might be led to think a cup of flour has the explosive force bound in two sticks of dynamite -certainly an entire cup of fine particles from just about any flammable material would make a dangerously large flash and bang if ignited while suspended in air. But would the resultant explosive force actually be equivalent to that liberated from two sticks of dynamite? I wonder. Likewise, while sugar does have a relatively large amount of chemical energy bound in the molecule, would simply tossing a cup of sugar into a pan of flaming oil release two dynamite sticks' worth of explosive force? This seems unlikely. Alfred Nobel would have made his fortune that way rather than with TNT if so, it would seem.
My heart goes out to the gal who discovered the part about water and flaming oil the hard way.
Any comments on the "two sticks of dynamite" portion?
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Anchorage
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Re: Is this entirely true? The "two sticks of dynamite" portion is that about which I am wondering....
Sun, November 4, 2007 - 5:09 PMBoth flour and sugar are carbohydrates, so quilify as low explosives (burns very fast - gunpowder is a low explosive) if they are a fine powder mixed with lots of oxygen. TNT and dynamite are high explosives (decomposes releasing energy and GAS.) Two moles of nitroglycerine produce 5 moles of water vapor, 3 moles of N2, 1 mole of CO2 and 5 moles of CO (the CO can then burn to make CO2, releasing more energy), which means we go from about 0.3 L of a liquid to about 300 L of gas (which doesn't account for the fact that it is a hot gas and requires a larger volume then a gas at room temperature). Sugar contains a lot of energy but will never do what dynamite does - not that I recommend anyone trying the experiment.
