Things Really Do Catch Fire
The Hangzhou Round famously caught fire. But what is a fire, and how does it burn? Begin your exploration of this topic with the terms below:
Oxidation is a chemical reaction that involves the loss of electrons or increase in oxidation state of a molecule, atom, or ion. The opposite process is called reduction, which is a gain of electrons or the decrease in the oxidation state of a molecule, atom, or ion. Oxidation can be defined as the interaction between oxygen molecules and all the different substances they may contact. Oxidation and reduction form a redox reaction that is remembered by the acronym OIL RIG (Oxidation Is Loss, Reduction Is Gain).
oxidation
ignition or combustion
Combustion, or burning, is a high- temperature exothermic redox reaction between a fuel (the reductant) and an oxidant, usually atmospheric oxygen, that produces oxidized, often gaseous products, in a mixture termed as smoke. Combustion does not always result in fire, because a flame is only visible when substances undergoing combustion vaporize, but when it does, a flame is a characteristic indicator of the reaction. While activation energy must be supplied to initiate combustion (e.g., using a lit match to light a fire), the heat from a flame may provide enough energy to make the reaction self-sustaining.
Ignition systems are used by heat engines to initiate combustion by igniting the fuel-air mixture. In a spark ignition versions of the internal combustion engine (such as petrol engines), the ignition system creates a spark to ignite the fuel-air mixture just before each combustion stroke. Gas turbine engines and rocket engines normally use an ignition system only during start-up.
The flash point of a material is the "lowest liquid temperature at which, under certain standardized conditions, a liquid gives off vapours in a quantity such as to be capable of forming an ignitable vapour/air mixture".
The flash point is a descriptive characteristic that is used to distinguish between flammable fuels, such as petrol (also known as gasoline), and combustible fuels, such as diesel. It is also used to characterize the fire hazards of fuels. Fuels which have a flash point less than 37.8 °C (100.0 °F) are called flammable, whereas fuels having a flash point above that temperature are called combustible.
Convection is the process of heat transfer through the movement of a heated fluid, such as air or water. It occurs when warmer, less dense fluid rises while cooler, denser fluid sinks, creating a circular motion. This method of heat transfer is essential in various natural phenomena, such as atmospheric circulation and ocean currents.
The fire triangle or combustion triangle is a simple model for understanding the necessary ingredients for most fires. The triangle illustrates the three elements a fire needs to ignite: heat, fuel, and an oxidizing agent (usually oxygen). A fire naturally occurs when the elements are present and combined in the right mixture. A fire can be prevented or extinguished by removing any one of the elements in the fire triangle. For example, covering a fire with a fire blanket blocks oxygen and can extinguish a fire. In large fires where firefighters are called in, decreasing the amount of oxygen is not usually an option because there is no effective way to make that happen in an extended area.
The fire tetrahedron represents the addition of the chemical chain reaction to the three already present in the fire triangle. Combustion is a chemical reaction that feeds a fire more heat and allows it to continue. Once a fire has started, the resulting exothermic chain reaction sustains the fire and allows it to continue until or unless at least one of the elements of the fire is blocked:
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foam can be used to deny the fire the oxygen it needs
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water can be used to lower the temperature of the fuel below the ignition point, or to remove or disperse the fuel.
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halon can be used to remove free radicals and create a barrier of inert gas in a direct attack on the chemical reaction responsible for the fire.
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carbon dioxide, being denser than air, can displace oxygen away from the fire
Water cannot be used on certain type of fires:
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Fires where live electricity is present – as water conducts electricity it presents an electrocution hazard.
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Hydrocarbon fires – as it will only spread the fire because of the difference in density/hydrophobicity. For example, adding water to a fire with an oil source will cause the oil to spread, since oil and water do not mix. However, using a foam/water mix in a specific application method is acceptable.
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Metal fires – as these fires produce huge amounts of energy (up to 7.550 calories/kg for aluminium) and water can also create violent chemical reactions with burning metal (possibly even serving as an additional oxidizing agent).
A flame is the visible, gaseous part of a fire, caused by a highly exothermic chemical reaction in a thin zone. Flames are hot enough to have ionized gaseous components and are considered plasma. They result from combustion reactions where fuel reacts with oxygen, producing heat energy. Flame propagation is explained by two theories: heat conduction and diffusion. In heat conduction, heat flows from the flame front, the area in a flame in which combustion occurs, to the inner cone, the area containing the unburned mixture of fuel and air. When the unburned mixture is heated to its ignition temperature, it combusts in the flame front, and heat from that reaction again flows to the inner cone, thus creating a cycle of self-propagation. In diffusion, a similar cycle begins when reactive molecules produced in the flame front diffuse into the inner cone and ignite the mixture. A mixture can support a flame only above some minimum and below some maximum percentage of fuel gas. These percentages are called the lower and upper limits of inflammability. Mixtures of natural gas and air, for example, will not propagate flame if the proportion of gas is less than about 4% or more than about 15%.
A fuel is any material that can be made to react with other substances so that it releases energy as thermal energy or to be used for work. The concept was originally applied solely to those materials capable of releasing chemical energy but has since also been applied to other sources of heat energy, such as nuclear energy.
Next, explore the history of fire. Was it discovered or invented, and by whom and when? How often is this history revised? (alternate link) Discuss with your team: if someone had first come up with fire in 2024, would they have been able to patent or copyright it? (And would it have been subject to international copyright laws?) Did anyone “own” fire in a similar way in the ancient world?
There is a debate about which early human ancestor actually tamed fire. Previously, the verified evidence points to Neanderthals and Homo sapiens at Israel's Qesem Cave which dates back 300,000 to 400,000 years ago. However, new evidence has surfaced at South Africa's Wonderwerk cave a site of early hominin inhabitation from 1 million to up to 2 million years ago. They discovered a layer of rock with hand axes, stone flakes (Oldowan tools) attributed to Homo erectus, which lived from 1.8 million to 200,000 years ago. Homo erectus had an upright stance and robust build. This evidence was published by Frencesco Berna, an archaeology professor at Boston University. And, he is not alone, other researchers also have found evidence that fire control originated as early as 1.5 million years ago.
Most of the previous evidence was in open-air sites where the fire might have been from elsewhere, but Wonderwerk Cave is a protected environment with less probability of spontaneous flames. One leading primatologist Richard Wrangham has argued that cooking allowed human ancestors to consume more calories and developed larger brains, smaller teeth and stomachs, all leading up to evolutionary change. "So far, Richard Wrangham’s cooking hypothesis is based on anatomical and phylogenetic evidence that show that Homo erectus may have been already adapted to a cooked food diet,” Berna explained. “Our evidence from Wonderwerk is consistent with Homo erectus being able to eat cooked food.”
One way or another, people did start the fire. While fires can occur naturally, different methods—such as matches, and episodes of the Apprentice—now allow us to start them at will. Investigate historical fire-starting, from stones and flint to ants and lenses. Discuss with your team: should children be taught how to start fires—and, if so, at what age?
There are many ways to start a fire and one of these might come in handy if you are are out in the wild camping or just trying to survive. John Plant has one of the most watched videos about fire starting.
The Apprentice
The Apprentice is an American reality television series that judged the business skills of a group of contestants. It ran in various formats across fifteen seasons on NBC from 2004 to 2017. The Apprentice was created by British television producer Mark Burnett, and co-produced with Donald Trump, who was the show's host for the first fourteen seasons. His famous line: "You're fired!"
A lighter is a portable device which uses mechanical or electrical means to create a controlled flame. A lighter typically consists of a metal or plastic container filled with a flammable liquid, a compressed flammable gas, or in rarer cases a flammable solid. Alternatively, a lighter can be one that uses electricity to create an electric arc using the created plasma as the source of ignition or a heating element, as first formally used by Friedrich Wilhelm Schindler and now more commonly seen incorporated into the automobile auxiliary power outlet to ignite the target material.
Lighter
The first lighters were converted flintlock pistols that used gunpowder. The development of ferrocerium (often misidentified as flint) by Carl Auer von Welsbach in 1903 has made modern lighters possible. Using Carl Auer von Welsbach's flint, companies such as Ronson were able to develop practical and easy-to-use lighters. In 1910, Ronson released the first Pist-O-Liter, and in 1913, the company developed its first lighter, called the "Wonderlite". The Zippo lighter and company were invented and founded by George Grant Blaisdell in 1932. The Zippo was noted for its reliability, "Life Time Warranty" and marketing as "Wind-Proof". Most early Zippos used naphtha as a fuel source.
Match
Typically, matches are made of small wooden sticks or stiff paper. One end is coated with a material that can be ignited by friction generated by striking the match against a suitable surface. Wooden matches are packaged in matchboxes, and paper matches are partially cut into rows and stapled into matchbooks. The coated end of a match, known as the match "head", consists of a bead of active ingredients and binder, often colored for easier inspection. There are two main types of matches: safety matches, which can be struck only against a specially prepared surface, and strike-anywhere matches, for which any suitably frictional surface can be used.
The first friction matches were invented by John Walker, an English chemist and apothecary, whose ledger of April 7, 1827, records the first sale of such matches. Walker’s “Friction Lights” had tips coated with a potassium chloride–antimony sulfide paste, which ignited when scraped between a fold of sandpaper. He never patented them. Nonphosphoric friction matches were being made by G.-E. Merkel of Paris and J. Siegal of Austria, among others, by 1832, by which time the manufacture of friction matches was well established in Europe.
Lens
Before the use of matches, fires were sometimes lit using a burning glass (a lens) to focus the sun on tinder. A burning lens is a large convex lens that can concentrate the Sun's rays onto a small area, heating up the area and thus resulting in ignition of the exposed surface. Burning mirrors achieve a similar effect by using reflecting surfaces to focus the light. They were used in 18th-century chemical studies for burning materials in closed glass vessels where the products of combustion could be trapped for analysis. The burning glass was a useful contrivance in the days before electrical ignition was easily achieved. Archimedes is purported to have invented a large scale solar furnace, sometimes described as a heat ray, and used it to burn attacking Roman ships during the Siege of Syracuse (c. 213–212 BC).
A fire that no one can extinguish: not Los Angeles in 2025 but a deadly weapon in Byzantine Greece. Learn the science and history of Greek fire. Would it still be a useful weapon today, and what are its closest modern-day equivalents? Be sure to study the examples of napalm, thermite, and white phosphorus.
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Greek Fire was an advanced secret weapon used by the Byzantine Empire to defend against Islamic assaults.
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Its deployment techniques and innovations had devastating physical and psychological effects on ancient warfare, forcing enemy forces to adapt their tactics.
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Greek Fire left a lasting legacy as a symbol of Byzantine ingenuity, demonstrating the empire’s resourcefulness in defending its capital.
Callinicus of Heliopolis, a Greek-speaking Jewish refugee, is recognized for inventing Greek fire after fleeing the Arab conquest of Syria during the 7th century. His intention was to protect his newly acquired land from potential Arab invasion. Often referred to as liquid fire, Greek fire’s true nature still remains a mystery. Its exact composition has been speculated to be composed of some combination of: pine resin, naphtha, quicklime, calcium phosphide, sulfur, niter. The weapon was so powerful that its formula was known exclusively to the Kallinikos family and Byzantine emperors. For hundreds of years, this powerful incendiary weapon, a prime example of a Byzantine weapon, was employed by the Byzantine Empire to fend off Islamic assaults.
Employed in naval battles and sieges, Greek fire was instrumental in safeguarding the Byzantine capital. It could not be extinguished by water, which actually made it worse. It was often launched from tubes affixed to the prows of ships, I imagine like a long canon. It was pivotal is several naval battles including the Battle of Gallipoli in 1416, and the First Arab
Siege of Constantinople in 678 BCE and Second Arab Siege of Constantinople from 717-718 BCE. It was also used against sieges with a hand siphon called cheirosiphon, portable hand-held flamethrowers. On ships, they would use a pivoting crane to discharge it to enemy vessels. The Byzantine army also make Greek fire grenades.
The recipe for Greek Fire is lost and many scientists and historians have tried to recreate it with: light petroleum or naphtha, pitch, sulfur, pine or cedar resin, lime and bitumen. The allure of this formidable weapon continues to inspire awe so many centuries later.
For early humans, fire was surely useful for cooking raw Macrauchenia and for fending off saber-toothed tigers—but could it also have been used to create the ancient equivalent of cartoons? Consider this research into the prehistoric use of fire as a tool for animation, then discuss with your team: is this a form of art (or entertainment) that we should be reviving today? Can you imagine other forms of storytelling that utilize natural phenomena—for instance, strong winds—in a similar way?
Researchers examined 15,000-year-old stone art and suggest the makers were inspired to show movement by dynamic lighting of the fireside environment.
“Maybe it’s akin to Paleolithic TV where they sit by the firelight, chat, warm their hands against the fire and create things,” says Andy Needham, an archaeologist from the University of York. Needham and colleagues theorize that the flickering flames ignited part of the artists’ creative process and were key to the way viewers experienced the work. In a study published in PLOS ONE, the team created limestone replicas and 3-D models of 15,000 year-old carvings, singed them by both real and virtual-reality fires, and brought a variety of ancient animals etched in stone to life. Proximity to the flames appears to ‘animate’ the figures, they suggest, causing the perception that horses and other figures move dynamically across the rock.
The ancient artists were from the Magdalenian culture, hunter gatherers who lived in Europe between about 23,000 and 14,000 years ago. The Magdalenians, living near the close of the last Ice Age in a cold but gradually improving climate, produced a wide range of notable art, from decorated tools to engraved bones and celebrated cave paintings. Lascaux, France, was one of their creations and were ‘animated’ by their own interplay with firelight. As these plaquettes with ancient art is now at the British Museum, they are not at their original environmental context for the researchers to test these theories. However, the research team created new engraved
plaquettes, made out of limestone, and put them through different scenarios.to see what kind of fire source and exposure could recreate the telltale pink heat damage that’s visible around the edges of the originals. They buried some and lit a fire round them to mimic accidental exposure to fires long after their creating. Their research indicates that the art was intentionally made and viewed while being repeatedly positioned in a circular formation close to the hearth, possibly for creative inspiration.
Humans often see familiar objects, or patterns, in what are really random objects—like a face in the clouds or a dog in a piece of burnt toast. This effect, known as pareidolia, occurs because our brain is wired to look for these patterns. For countless generations pareidolia has helped us to survive, perhaps by allowing us to do things like identify a predator in the bushes.
“The experiments suggest the same may have been possible with these small pieces of portable art,” says Jill Cook, curator at the British Museum and specialist in Ice Age art who wasn’t involved with the study. But Cook notes some significant differences as well. The plaquette drawings appear comparatively quickly executed and lack the finesse and elements of composition seen in Magdalenian cave art.
On New Year’s Eve ___, a tragic fireworks accident killed many and maimed more in ____. Every year, those blanks can be filled in differently, most recently with 2024 and Hawaii. Though dangerous, fireworks remain popular around the world. Research their history with your team. What were the earliest fireworks—widely believed to have been invented in China—made of, and what was their purpose? When and how did they become the bright and colorful displays they are today? Discuss with your team: should they be outlawed, and, if so, is there something that could replace them in the popular imagination?
Hawaiians love their fireworks for parties, Super Bowls, mixed martial arts fights, even Thanksgiving, and this includes setting off illegal fireworks. The increasingly sophisticated displays, loved by some and loathed by others, are so prevalent that some people consider them part of the state’s culture. Even though Hawaiian government publishes a list of casualties and even deaths, it has not deterred the ones that want to see the sparks go off.
Hawaii's efforts to stop contraband fireworks have not had much effect as the Department of Law Enforcement concluded that illegal fireworks are likely smuggled into Hawaii on a daily basis. And, the fireworks have gotten bigger and more dangerous over the years. Additionally, people that want to report incidents of illegal fireworks are afraid of retaliation as everyone knows everyone in the neighborhood. People don't want to get involved with trouble. The laws are in place, it is just finding better ways to enforce them.
Music can be explosive; it can also be about explosives. Listen to the works below to see how the creators treat fireworks in their music. Are they celebrating or criticizing them, or is it impossible to tell? What instruments or lyrics do they use to channel the feeling of fireworks?
The Music for the Royal Fireworks (HWV 351) is a suite in D major for wind instruments composed by Handel under contract of George II of Great Britain for the fireworks in London's Green Park on 27 April 1749. The music celebrates the end of the War of the Austrian Succession and the signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen) in 1748. The work was very popular when first performed and following Handel's death. This song was meant to go together with fireworks and when it was first performed, the display was not as successful as the music itself: the weather was rainy, causing many misfires, and in the middle of the show the right pavilion caught fire and other crew members were also hurt during the rehearsal.
Igor Stravinsky is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century and a pivotal figure in modernist music. Feu d'artifice, Op. 4 ('Fireworks') was composed in 1908 and described by the composer as a "short orchestral fantasy", taking less than 4 minutes to perform. It was composed as a wedding present for Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's daughter Nadezhda and Maximilian Steinberg, who had married a few days before her father's death. In this chaotic and whimsical piece, the strings bow up a storm and the woodwinds intensifies in crescendo. The cymbals are the blast of the fireworks, making it an very exciting pieces that conveys a sense of joy.
The last of twenty-four preludes by Claude Debussy, Feux d’artifice (fireworks) finishes this magnificent cycle with a festive display of fireworks, both as a musical image and as a pianistic challenge. Brilliant and poetic, ‘Feux d’artifice’, the most developed piece of Book II, concludes the Preludes with bouquets of light. Fireworks were a regular staple at the Bastille Day in France, much like the Independence Day celebrated in the United States. As a homage to the French holiday Claude Debussy quotes a short segment of the French national anthem at the end of this prelude. The piece features chains of arpeggios, cadences and—rare for Debussy—octave runs. Athematic, atonal and static, ‘Feux d’artifice’ is one of Debussy’s most audaciously innovative pieces. Its quasi-informal structure is not derived from any tonal unity.
Stuart Oliver Knussen CBE (12 June 1952 – 8 July 2018) was a British composer of contemporary classical music and conductor. Among the most influential British composers of his generation. Oliver Knussen’s Flourish with Fireworks was written as a homage to Igor Stravinsky. His Feu d’Artifice was Knussen’s model when he composed his piece commissioned by the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 1988.
"Fire◎Flower" is an original pop rock song by halyosy featuring vocal and electronic guitar. It was uploaded to YouTube and piapro on August 3, 2008. It is one halyosy's most notable songs and one of Kagamine Len's early hits. Various artists have covered it, including halyosy himself. The song tells a story about a boy (Len) who describes his love for a girl (Rin), presumably in the summer (during the summer's festival). "Like a fire flower" is a metaphor to his love for her. The symbol "◎" symbolizes "firework" in the title.
"I'm glad I was able to love you from the beginning," that's what I'm going to sing to the sky
A-Oo, Eeieiee!!♪ A-Oo♪, Eeieiee♪
A-Oo, Eeieiee!!♪ A-Oo♪, Eeieiee♪
Seeking a place where I can jumpstart my packed-in dreams
I left this town
My phone vibrates with an incoming call, I turned the power off
My fuse is burning; no one can stop it
If the end of the world arrived now
Then I would leave everything behind and the two of us would be together forever
So I won't vanish, sparks scattеr, and my dreams launch themselvеs upwards
"I wish I hadn't loved you from the beginning," that's what I went so far as to lie...
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!
A-Oo, Eeieiee!!♪ A-Oo♪, Eeieiee♪
A-Oo, Eeieiee!!♪ A-Oo♪, Eeieiee♪
A view I'm not used to, unnatural smiles
The festival wasn't the showy kind
My voicemail replays a voice saying, "Keep your chin up!"
My fuse is about to go out from my tears
If the beginning of the universe was that kiss
Then the starry sky is the traces of miracles that the two of us shed
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"Firework" is a song by American singer Katy Perry from her third studio album, Teenage Dream (2010). Perry co-wrote the song with Ester Dean. It is a dance-pop self-empowerment anthem with inspirational lyrics, and Perry felt it was an important song for her on the record.
According to Perry, "Firework" is influenced by Jack Kerouac's novel, On the Road. The line "Cause baby, you're a firework / Come on, show 'em what you're worth / Make 'em go, awe, awe, awe" is based on Kerouac's line "burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Awww!'"
Do you ever feel like a plastic bag
Drifting through the wind, wanting to start again?
Do you ever feel, feel so paper-thin
Like a house of cards, one blow from cavin' in?
Do you ever feel already buried deep?
Six feet under screams, but no one seems to hear a thing
Do you know that there's still a chance for you?
'Cause there's a spark in you
You just gotta ignite the light
And let it shine
Just own the night
Like the Fourth of July
'Cause baby, you're a firework
Come on show 'em what you're worth
Make 'em go, "Ah, ah, ah"
As you shoot across the sky-y-y
Baby, you're a firework
Come on, let your colors burst
Make 'em go, "Ah, ah, ah"
You're gonna leave 'em all in awe, awe, awe
If you’ve ever gone camping on a cold night, you might have gathered around a fire with your friends to toast tasty s’mores and tell tasty stories. Every so often, someone needs to put more wood in the fire to keep it from going out—they are tending it. Early towns and villages had people assigned to this task full-time, because it was much harder to restart a fire than to keep it going. Explore the mythologies that emerged in early civilizations around the idea of keeping a fire alive and well, then discuss with your team: is there anything else similar to fire that is easier to keep alive than to restart once it is gone—and, if so, who tends to it?
As the Sun rises over the horizon and fills the sky with its magical light, a 2000 year old ritual is performed daily in the few remaining Zoroastrian temples of Mumbai. The priest performs a ceremony (5 times each day), tending to the flames of the consecrated fire, offering fragrant sandalwood and incense while reciting ancient texts venerating the holy fire, ringing a bell nine times, rejecting evil thoughts, evil words, and evil deeds. Such veneration of fire, however, is not distinct to the Zoroastrian community. Many cultures around the world have worshipped fire in different manners over millennia.
Mumbai is home to several Zoroastrian fire temples, including the Seth Banaji Limji Agiary, the oldest, and the Maneckji Seth Agiary, the second oldest. These temples, also known as "agiaries" or "house of fire," are where Zoroastrians gather for worship and rituals. They are not open to the public, as Zoroastrian temples are generally restricted to members of the faith.
Fire has been an essential part of many religions and mythology. 8 of the 10 books of the Rig Veda, the oldest of the sacred books of Hinduism, composed in an ancient form of Sanskrit about 1500 BCE, start with a song in praise of Agni the god of Fire.
Greek myth speaks of Prometheus, who disobeyed Zeus’s decree, stole fire from the chariot of the Sun god Helios and gave it to man as a gift. This act of compassion, in the interest of Man’s progress, bore grave consequences and he is said to suffer a terrible punishment. The international Olympic Games commemorate this theft of fire in the lighting and consecration of the Olympic flame.
Aztec myth speaks of the god Nanahuatl who jumped into a fire, sacrificing himself to become the Sun to set into motion the beginning of the fifth age.
Fire is not only a physical symbol, but also a a strong mental force that can discern between pure and impure, refining into deeper more essential essence of wisdom. In Zoroastrianism, dating back to Persia, it is a way to reach divinity. Zarathustra, the earliest prophet of Zoroastrianism, claimed that Fire a universal role and metaphysical meaning. Atash (Fire) is called Asha Vahishta, Cosmic Fire or Divine Essence of Ahura Mazda (the Supreme Being) which resides in every atom of the Universe. It is the source of all creation and is equated with Ahura Mazda’s own Inner Divine Light, which crosses the limits of time and space.
In the 10th Century C.E., the ancestors of the Parsis left their motherland Iran and landed in Sanjan, (Gujarat, India) in order to preserve their religion. After establishing themselves for a few years they sought to establish a house of worship, Atash Behram (Fire of Victory). Having arrived in India lacking the ceremonial apparatus required, they sent high ranking Priests to Khorasan (Iran) and brought on foot the ritual apparatus (Aalaat) to be used for the consecration. They sent men to collect fire from 16 sources (click open the article to see the list, very interesting) representing difference cosmic energy. In the most sacred chambers of the temple, they used all the fires together did different rituals to purify them with myrrh, frankincense, and sandalwood shavings and purified it 1128 times! The resulting fire, the Atash Padshah (Emperor), is venerated as a Divine Being with an energy and consciousness and is perceived as the actual presence of the life animating principle of Asha, Truth.
Consider the fire-related selections below, then discuss with your team: do they treat fire literally or metaphorically, and to what end?
French Baroque painter La Tour's distinguished himself from others working in the Baroque style through a series of works that feature figures lit dramatically by the soft glow of a single light source. La Tour became increasingly drawn to candlelight scenes - often featuring a young boy or girl absorbed in an everyday task, whereby the flame spreads an atmosphere of otherworldly calm across the whole canvas. He initially painted in a realistic manner and was influenced by the dramatic chiaroscuro (light and dark) of Caravaggio or his followers.
In this painting, the subject is the Biblical figure Mary Magdalene. In this context, she is an aged woman and in deep contemplation on Jesus's important experiences. Despite her immoral beginnings, she was a favorite subject for many painters, representing remorse and God's forgiveness and mercy. The light is likely a symbolism for God's words which light the path of all believers. The scripture on
on the table add to the religious connotation of the work. The skull on her lap means "memento mori," (Latin for "remember that you must die"), a visual reminder of the inevitability of death and the transience of life. It serves as a symbol of mortality, urging viewers to reflect on the shortness of life and the importance of living in the present. In this painting the fire is literal warmth and glow and more importantly, symbolic to the comfort of spirituality.
The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through the central parts of the English City of London, from September 2nd to September 6th 1666. The fire gutted the majority of the Medieval City of London, inside the old Roman City Wall.
In total it consumed 13,200 houses, 87 churches, St. Paul`s Cathedral and most of the buildings of the City authorities. Of the 80,000 inhabitants at the time, 70,000 lost their homes, but
but amazingly only six deaths were recorded, although it may be that the deaths of poor and middle-class people were not added to the statistics and the heat of the fire may have left many victims totally unrecognisable. The Great Fire started at the Baker`s house on Pudding Lane and unfortunately, the then Lord Mayor of London, failed to show good leadership and to give the necessary order for demolition, which was the usual way of preventing the spread of fire at that time.
This painting creates a very dramatic impression of the disaster. People fleeing the gates and a woman sits in despair on the ground next to her baby in a cradle. Newgate was a prison so the prisoners were marched out under armed guard to safety in Southwark but some escaped on the way.
The Dutch painter Jan Griffier was born in Amsterdam. He was first apprenticed to a carpenter, a tile painter and a flower painter before becoming a pupil of the etcher and landscape painter. This work became a lithograph and was copied by many other painters. In this painting, fire is depicted as a raging disaster that consumes lives.
While Paul Sandby produced many views of Windsor Castle in various media throughout his career, this scene of the celebration of Guy Fawkes Night is particularly notable for its concentration on the townspeople and their festivities, elements that usually appear as minor details in his works. Guy Fawkes Night, also called Bonfire Night, is a celebration of the Gunpowder Plot of November 5, 1605, in which Catholic conspirators allegedly attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London. The red tone of the ink gives the bonfire
scene additional warmth while emphasizing the white plumes of smoke trailing from the fireworks.
Paul Sandby was an English map-maker turned landscape painter in watercolours, who, along with his older brother Thomas, became one of the founding members of the Royal Academy in 1768. In this painting the fire represents victory and celebration, instead of destruction and chaos. It is also a a force of the people, unlike religious works that represent higher beings or rulers.
Fire consumed London’s famous Houses of Parliament on the night of October 16, 1834, and people gathered along the banks of the river Thames to gaze in awe at the horrifying spectacle. Initially, a low tide made it difficult to pump water to land and hampered steamers towing firefighting equipment along the river. The blaze burned uncontrollably for hours.
J. M. W. Turner records the struggle as the boats in the lower-right corner head toward the flames. Although Turner based the painting on an actual event, he magnified the height of the flames, using the disaster as the starting point to express
man’s helplessness when confronted with the destructive powers of nature. Brilliant swathes of color and variable atmospheric effects border on abstraction.
Turner painted two versions of this event. Cleveland's painting views the fire downriver, from the southeast bank of the Thames, while the second version at the Philadelphia Museum of Art views the fire from directly across Westminster Bridge. Initially, a romantic painter, Turner is one of the landmark English artists whose works elevated landscapes into history paintings. He is known for his expressive colouring, imaginative landscapes and turbulent, often violent marine paintings.
Tsukioka Yoshitoshi was one of the last Ukiyo-e artists of the nineteenth century. Here he captured a dramatic scene of orange flames and smoke set with a firefighter in the foreground, wearing a thick, indigo coat with decorative sashiko stitching. He wears headgear with a mark indicating his squad, Marugumi (Circle). He holds a matoi, a three-dimensional flag indicating the location of the firefighters. On the right are three gray silhouetted figures of other firefighters on a roof. Above, the moon is covered by smoke, hardly noticeable, taking a secondary role to the action below. The character on the hat shows that he belongs to Number One Company. Standards were held aloft on roof tops so that each brigade could be identified and so that firemen could signal above the flames and noise. A distant fireman holds another standard on the roof opposite. There was great rivalry between the district brigades because the particular brigade that saved each property was rewarded.
One Hundred Aspects of the Moon, or Tsuki no Hyakushi (月百姿) in Japanese, is a collection of 100 ōban size ukiyo-e woodblock prints by Japanese artist Tsukioka Yoshitoshi printed in batches, starting in 1885 until 1892. The woodblock prints feature various famous figures, both historical and literary characters, each in a moonlit scene as well as occasional references to poetry. This work is #22 and shows the conflict between man and fire.
Alberto Burri (12 March 1915 – 13 February 1995) was an Italian visual artist, painter, sculptor, and physician based in Città di Castello. He is associated with the matterism of the European informal art movement and described his style as a polymaterialist. He had connections with spatialism and was an influence on the revival of the art of post-war assembly in the United States as in Europe. He is often noted as one of the most "overrated" or "underrated" artists. The Italian artist became famous for transforming unexpected materials—most famously burlap sacks, but also linen, plastic, sheet metal, and bark—into moving assemblages that he occasionally embellished with gold leaf, charred to haunting effect, or lashed with red paint. Burri’s work belongs in the collections of the Guggenheim and Museum of Modern Art in New York, Centre Pompidou in Paris, and Tate Modern in London, among other museums, and regularly sells for millions on the secondary market.
Fire became of of his signature techniques. After a few sporadic attempts, in 1953–54 Burri conducted a carefully planned experimentation with fire, through small combustions on paper, which served as illustrations for a book of poems by Emilio Villa. The best known application of this procedure was in Plastiche (Plastics) during the Sixties, when a gradual critic openness towards Burri's art showed up in Italy as well.
In this work, the blowtorch was both a destructive and creative device. Indeed, the craters modeled by the flame on red or plastic was lightly directed by the painter's blowing. The balances of the matter were thus highlighted once again, in a sort of 'defiance' towards of flame's randomness on the one hand, and in a sort of attempt to 'dominate chance', intrinsic to Burri's philosophy.
Yves Klein (28 April 1928 – 6 June 1962) was a French artist and an important figure in post-war European art. He was a leading member of the French artistic movement of Nouveau réalisme founded in 1960 Klein was a pioneer in the development of performance art, and is seen as an inspiration to and as a forerunner of minimal art, as well as pop art. He developed and used International Klein Blue.
The Symphony No. 59 in A major is a relatively early work by Joseph Haydn that is known popularly as the Fire Symphony. Composed under the auspices of Nikolaus Esterházy, it was written in the middle or late 1760s. The symphony has long been popularly known as the Feuer or Fire symphony. As with most other monikers attached to Haydn's symphonies, the name itself did not originate with the composer. Instead, the nickname almost certainly derives from the use of several movements as accompanying music to a performance of the play Die Feuersbrunst (Fire Disaster) by Gustav Friedrich Wilhelm Großmann. The work is in standard four movement form and scored for two oboes, two French horns, continuo (bassoon, harpsichord) and strings. The first movement is called Presto. The violins create spirited restlessness as they repeat the tonic note of A, and the entire orchestra plays forte. The spirit of this opening movement may have been the original inspiration for the nickname fire. In contrast to the loudness of the fire at the beginning of the movement, the fire dies away at the end.
Wilhelm Richard Wagner (22 May 1813 – 13 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas. One of his most famous works is a 16-hour, four-opera cycle called Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung, also known simply as The Ring) - based on an epic Norse mythology about the creation and destruction of the world.
The second evening of this epic saga brings a touching story of the love between a father and his daughter. Wotan, going against his personal desires in order to fulfill his moral and divine duty (and to avoid angering his wife), orders Brünnhilde to ensure the victory of a wronged husband in a duel. Brünnhilde, however, senses his true wishes and tips the battle in the other direction. Wotan, discovering her defiance, is forced to intervene and finds himself duty-bound to punish her: she will be stripped of her divinity and placed into a magic sleep, vulnerable to the first man to discover her. Brünnhilde protests that she was only acting as he truly willed, seeing beyond his words into his heart. Her words move him, and he amends the punishment. Though unable to revoke his sentence, she will now be protected by a magic fire through which only the bravest of heroes will be able to pass.
Few scenes in opera present the conflict between love and duty quite so touchingly as the finale of Die Walküre. Wotan, gazing upon his daughter, reflects:
That bright pair of eyes
That I often smilingly kissed…
Let them refresh me today
One last time
With a final farewell kiss!
Their star will shine
On a happier man,
But for this cursed immortal
They must close in parting.
So the god departs from you.
So he kisses away your divinity.
The father gently leans over his dearest daughter—a woman guilty only of attempting to please him—and kisses her sweetly on the eyelids. As she slips into eternal sleep, he cries out in sorrow, slams his spear into the ground, and orders Loge to bring forth the flames:
Arise, magic fire!
Encircle the cliff with fire for me!
He who fears the tip of my spear
Shall never pass through this fire!
The Origin of Fire , Op. 32, is a single-movement, patriotic cantata for baritone, male choir, and orchestra written in 1902 by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. The piece, which is a setting of Runo XLVII (lines 41–110) of the Kalevala, Finland's national epic, is chronologically the fourth of Sibelius's nine orchestral cantatas.
It premiered on 9 April 1902 at the opening of the Finnish National Theatre, conducted by the composer. It was later revised in 1910. Some of the sketches for the piece can be related back to 1893 to 1894.
27 year old Stravinsky was excited about the opportunity for a commission from Ballet Russes. He was also excited about writing big, formal dance numbers. He did have reservations about the necessity of writing gestural music to fit the dramatic passages of mime that related the story. But, he worked quickly and was able to complete the work in 6 months from initial score to final orchestration. The premiere of the lavishly colorful ballet marked a signal triumph for the Ballets Russes and put Stravinsky on the map.
The scenario of The Firebird involves the interaction of human characters with two supernatural figures: the magic Firebird and the
evil sorcerer Kashchei, a green-taloned ogre who cannot be killed except by destroying his soul, which is preserved in a casket in the form of an egg. The entire story is magical and romantic with a flurry of adventure and excitement. Stravinsky needed to find a way to distinguish musically between the human and the supernatural elements of the story. He used some of the same means employed by Rimsky-Korsakov: the humans are represented by diatonic, often folklike, melodies, the supernatural figures by chromatic ideas, slithery for Kashchei and his realm or shimmering arabesques for the Firebird (whose music is largely derived from a single motive).
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev (27 April 1891 – 5 March 1953) was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor who later worked in the Soviet Union. As the creator of acknowledged masterpieces across numerous music genres, he is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century.
Prokofiev’s Winter Bonfire was composed in 1950 for symphony orchestra, choir and narrator, and set to a text by Samuil Marshak. It follows works such as The Ugly Duckling and Peter and the Wolf in an area that Prokofiev excelled – the world of children’s music. However, as the work was especially created for Soviet state radio, it
quickly fell out of favour, meaning that, although Winter Bonfire has occasionally been performed and recorded, most often without the narrative, during the past 62 years, the work has been unfairly neglected as it is one of Prokofiev’s most inspiring compositions produced towards the end of his life.
Winter Bonfire tells the story of a group of children from Moscow on an outing in the snow, and depicts events like the departing train ride, snow falling, waltzing on the ice and the evening campfire. Such a simple and quintessentially Russian tale gave Prokofiev free reign to experiment with orchestration and melody, resulting in some of his most evocative and pleasing music. Prokofiev particularly draws attention to his talent as a ballet composer with the skating music that lies at the heart of the work, as it can be considered as one of his most beautiful waltzes.
"Great Balls of Fire" is a 1957 popular song recorded by American rock and roll musician Jerry Lee Lewis on Sun Records and featured in the 1957 movie Jamboree. Having a lively beat, the song was considered risque content back in the days. Lewis has a unique voice that brings alive the excitement of the song. Because of its catchy tune, it has been included in movies including Top Gun.
You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain
Too much love drives a man insane
You broke my will but what a thrill
Goodness gracious, great balls of fire
I laughed at love 'cause I thought it was funny
You came along and you moved me, honey
I've changed my mind, this love is fine
Goodness gracious, great balls of fire
You kiss me, baby
Woah, it feels good
Hold me, baby
Girl, love you like a lover should
You're fine, so kind
But I'ma tell this world that you're mine, mine, mine, mine
I chew my nails and I twiddle my thumbs
I get nervous, but it sure is fun
Come on, baby, you drive me crazy
Goodness gracious, great balls of fire
Ring of Fire is a song popularized by Johnny Cash after it appeared on his 1963 compilation album Ring of Fire: The Best of Johnny Cash. Written by Cash's eventual second wife, June Carter, and songwriter Merle Kilgore. It was first covered by June's sister, Anita Carter, on her 1962 album, Folk Songs Old and New, but when it did not become a hit, Cash recorded it his own way, adding the mariachi-style horns from his dream. The song describes passion like a ring of fire, like literally falling down down down into an abyss/hell.
Love is a burning thing
And it makes a fiery ring
Bound by wild desire
I fell into a ring of fire
I fell into a burning ring of fire
I went down, down, down
And the flames went higher
And it burns, burns, burns
The ring of fire
The ring of fire
The taste of love is sweet
When hearts like ours meet
I fell for you like a child
Oh, but the fire went wild
"Chariots of Fire" is an instrumental theme written and recorded by Greek legendary composer Vangelis for the soundtrack of the 1981 film of the same name. Originally, nn the film's soundtrack album, the piece is called simply "Titles" because of its use in the movie's opening titles sequence, but it widely became known as "Chariots of Fire". The phrase "Chariots of Fire" comes from the poem "Jerusalem" by William Blake. It is also found in the Bible, specifically in 2 Kings 2:11 and 6:17. The phrase is used as an image for the vitality of a headlong rush of power. It has been covered by numerous performers and used for various television programs and sporting events. Owing both to its sweeping tune and the content of the movie in which it first appeared, "Chariots of Fire" has become widely associated with the Olympic Games.
"We Didn't Start the Fire" is a song written by American musician Billy Joel. The song was released as a single on September 18, 1989, and later released as part of Joel's album Storm Front on October 17, 1989. A list song, its fast-paced lyrics include a series of brief references to 119 significant political, cultural, scientific, and sporting events between 1949 (the year of Joel's birth) and 1989, in mainly chronological order. If you like history, this is the ultimate song!
Harry Truman, Doris Day
Red China, Johnnie Ray
South Pacific
Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon
Studebaker, Television
North Korea, South Korea
Marilyn Monroe
Rosenbergs, H-Bomb
Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, The King And I,
And The Catcher In The Rye
Eisenhower, Vaccine
England's got a new queen
Marciano, Liberace
Santayana goodbye
Joseph Stalin, Malenkov
Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella
Communist Bloc
Roy Cohn, Juan Peron
Toscanini, Dacron
Dien Bien Phu Falls, " Rock Around the Clock"
Einstein, James Dean
Brooklyn's got a winning team
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan
Elvis Presley, Disneyland
Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Khrushchev
Princess Grace, Peyton Place
Trouble in the Suez
Little Rock, Pasternak
Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Zhou En-lai
Bridge On The River Kwai
Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle
California baseball
Starkweather Homicide
Children of Thalidomide
Buddy Holly, Ben-Hur
Space Monkey, Mafia
Hula Hoops, Castro
Edsel is a no-go
U-2, Syngman Rhee
Payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, Psycho
Belgians in the Congo
Hemingway, Eichmann
Stranger in a Strange Land
Dylan, Berlin
Bay of Pigs invasion
Lawrence of Arabia
British Beatlemania
Ole Miss, John Glenn
Liston beats Patterson
Pope Paul, Malcolm X
British Politician sex
J.F.K. blown away
What else do I have to say?
Birth control, Ho Chi Minh
Richard Nixon back again
Moonshot, Woodstock
Watergate, punk rock
Begin, Reagan, Palestine
Terror on the airline
Ayatollahs in Iran
Russians in Afghanistan
Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride
Heavy metal suicide
Foreign debts, homeless Vets
AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shores
China's under martial law
Rock and Roller cola wars
I can't take it anymore
"The Tyger" is a poem by the English poet William Blake, published in 1794 as part of his Songs of Experience collection and rising to prominence in the romantic period. The poem is one of the most anthologised in the English literary canon. The poem explores and questions Christian religious paradigms prevalent in late 18th century and early 19th century England, discussing God's intention and motivation for creating both the "Lamb" and the eponymous "Tyger." “The Tyger” expresses awe at the marvels of God’s creation, represented here by a tiger. But the tiger poses a problem: everything about it seems to embody fear, danger, and terror. In a series of questions, the speaker of “The Tyger” wonders whether this creature was really created by the same God who made the world’s gentle and joyful creatures. And if the tiger was created by God, why did God choose to create such a fearsome animal? Through the example of the tiger, the poem examines the existence of evil in the world, asking the same question in many ways: if God created everything and is all powerful, why does evil exist?
Forrest Gander (born January 21, 1956) is an American poet, translator, essayist, and novelist. The A.K. Seaver Professor Emeritus of Literary Arts & Comparative Literature at Brown University, Gander won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2019 for his poem "Be With".
The poem "Wasteland: on the California Wildfire" describes how a wildfire starts with intricate details in the the woods into a giant vortex sucking up acres of scorched topsoil. The shape of the poem is like that of a flame slowly wafting into the air. The ending speaks of the impacts of climate change and how man refuse to see it until it devastates everything around him and fills him with remorse.
A Chickasaw novelist, essayist, and environmentalist, Linda Hogan writes on her Native American heritage and the environment. the poem "The History of Fire" tells about the Native American mythology for the start of fire and how it spreads. While her parents and ancestors are the fuel for the fire, she is the wind that carries their spark to distant lands.
The poem is from When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry.
My dear one is a jar of burned bones
I have saved.
This is where our living goes
and still we breathe,
and even the dry grass
with sun and lightning above it
has no choice but to grow
and then lie down
with no other end in sight.
Air is between these words,
fanning the flame.
My mother is a fire beneath stone.
My father, lava.
My grandmother is a match,
my sister straw.
Grandfather is kindling like trees of the world.
My brothers are gunpowder,
and I am smoke with gray hair,
ash with black fingers and palms.
I am wind for the fire.
One of the most celebrated poets of the American post-war generation, Jorie Graham is the author of numerous collections of poetry. Visual art, mythology, history, and philosophy are central to Graham’s work.
Using long and short lines, indentation and spacing, Graham’s forms explore the dualities and polarities of life, of the creative and destructive tensions that exist between spirit and flesh, the real and the mythical, stillness and motion, the interior and exterior existence.
This poem describes a person trapped in a fire desperately looking for a way out. All around is destruction and death, with power lines, buildings, valleys engulfed in fire. The fire has no pattern and the person is suffocating as the air is being sucked into the fire. The person searches for a river from his/her memory but it is gone, meaning we can't only look to history for answers as climate change has dramatically altered our world. Hoping for safety and sanctuary, the person tries to remember the location of the river, but alas, the river is silent. Climate change has let our rivers run dry and when it need it the most, the precious lifeline is gone!
I am still
on the earth.
My interval
is fixed. Who
fixed it.
For a while
all that came out
was answers.
Then nothing.
In the distance
high tension lines
on fire and up close
a knot in a
branch on
fire. Stumps
everywhere. I waited. Looked for
a crease in the earth
wind or light
spells. Climbed higher
onto the ridge to see
further. Rocks
burning in the
distance. Then distance
burning. No
sweetwater. All tongues
fire, no speech
those of us human
could read for
signs. Grant me
mission my rushed heart
said. Grant me vision
into the balance
sheet. Everywhere I looked
those still traversing
began to fail. Air they
limped in itself
limped—
I thought I detected a
rhythm in the reddening—
thought at least pattern
give me—but
dust jerked-up in a
circle then dropped
holding no ghost
of meaning. Thought
are those still
bldngs in the distance—
are those still
addresses. The air I sd out
loud, looking into it standing there
in front of me. The air
going into its far moments
without
gathering-up. Smooth.
Flowing. Unruffled.
Above, new crowds now
crossing the summit &
swarming out into
the valley desperate for
intention. Which way
do we go
I ask the air. What
is it coughs in the
invisible, in the as-yet
unmade, as-yet un-
forced. Where nothing has been
established.
No forms locked
in. The sun
comes up burning.
Say everything I say to the air
which begins to
thin now, say
everything before it dis-
appears. Turn us
loose. I remember
a stream darting free
from headwaters & then the
downslope which was
earth’s gift. I remember it
widening. Leaves stirring above it,
as-if leaves stirring deep in-
side its
surface. What
are they an
expression of
I think as I squint them
in—gripping before
this memory
fades. Oh. Try to hold on.
We are a reflection
now. Where is what we
reflect? How could it
leave us here. Old
story, have you ended.
Have you left us in this memory-
stream now, without
reasons, without
plot. I look up before the
air becomes unbreathable,
I close my eyes and try to see it again,
the stream. It is a temple. It is
rushing. How could we
not have heard.
Hand drill
A hand drill is the simplest primitive method to produce rapid rotary motion of a rod. It consists in holding the rod vertically between both hands and moving these back and forth, in opposite directions, as in rubbing them. The rod typically is one or two feet long and half an inch in diameter. Hand drills have been used by many primitive societies as a fire drill to start a fire. It is still often learned as a useful survival skill. A hand drill could also be used as a tool for drilling holes in hard materials such as wood, stone, or bone.
Fire Striker
A fire striker is a piece of carbon steel from which sparks are struck by the sharp edge of flint, chert or similar rock. The sharp edge of the flint is used to violently strike the fire steel at an acute angle in order to cleave or shave off small particles of metal. The pyrophoricity of the steel results in the shavings oxidising in the air. The molten, oxidising sparks then ignite tinder. The tinder is best held next to the flint while the steel striker is quickly slid down against the flint, casting sparks into the tinder. Char cloth is often used to catch the low-temperature sparks, which can then can be brought to other, heavier tinder and blown into flame.