Sciencey Thoughts
It has occured to me that the answer to my previous writer's question would depend on how hot it gets in a burning house. Tim seems to be estimating far higher than I would (read comments in Another Writer's Question for details). But my only basis for how hot a house gets when it's on fire is the book Fahrenheit 451 where the firemen had to make sure the house reached that temperature for the books to incinerate.
So, anyone know the average temperature of a burning house?
1 comment:
I would try not to under estimate the heat. A burning house has a couple properties:
*It is full of things that burn very well.
*It is probably built of wood, which burns very well. And there is a lot of it.
*The air is probably in an enclosed space--the walls keep the air from cycling. This is what makes kilns and ovens so hot.
*It can burn for a very long time.
I have definitely spent time melting silver with an acetlyn torch. It was a tiny little bit of flame at that by itself could the needed 1800 degreesish farenheit. A house may not burn as hotly, but there is way way more flames.
Heck, I just cooked garlic bread at 450 degrees. A match can set fire on paper easily--that's 451. Imagine a million matches.
And remember that there's not some upper limit to heat--10,000,000 icecubes can't make it any colder than 0 degrees if the cubes are 0 degrees. A million matches at 1000 degrees can make it a lot hotter than 1000 degrees.
However, I did some research, and 800-1200 should be about right. Darn.
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