Things Really Do Catch Fire

Rituals/ concepts:

Atash: The term for fire in Zoroastrianism, symbolizing divine essence.

Frasho-kereti: The moment of healing or renovation in Zoroastrian eschatology.

Atash Bahram: A sacred fire dedicated to Verethraghna, maintained in high-grade temples.

Pahadia: The pits used in the purification rituals for fire.

Asha: divinity of genius of truth/ righteousness; referred to Asha Vahishta in Younger Avesta (language) 

Important Names:

• Agni: The Hindu god of fire, praised in the Rig Veda.

• Ahura Mazda: The supreme being in Zoroastrianism, associated with the cosmic fire.

• Zarathushtra (Zoroaster): The prophet who revealed the universal role and metaphysical meaning of fire in Zoroastrianism.

• Mithra: A Zoroastrian angel associated with light and justice; his name appears in the term "Dar-e-Meher" (Door of Light).

• Verethraghna: The Archangel of Victory, associated with the highest grade of fire temples.

Greek Fire

Byzantine Empire - 7th - 12th century, incendiary weapon; naval warfare, “secret weapon” - “sea fire”

History - 

• Used against Islamic attacks - defend Constantinople from Arab

• Invented: Callinicus of Heliopolis - Secret was with Kallinikos family and Byzantine emperors

• Used in tubular projectors, handheld flamethrowers 

• Naval warfare: fixed ob prows of ships

  • Battle of Gallipoli 1416 

  • Effective on the First Arab Siege of Constantinople 678 CE - also in siege defence 

  • Second Arab siege 717 - 718 CE

• Pivoting cranes discharge liquid fire; cheirosiphon (ancient flamethrower) - disrupts enemy formations 

• Turbular projectors: launch Greek fire

  • Heated oil could -> detonate on operators 

• Handheld flamethrowers 

  • by Emperor Leo VI 

  • Disrupt enemy formations, burn siege towers 

• Fire grenades 

  • Clay containers w/ flammable liquid 

modern day equivalents:

Napalm:

• the flammable sticky jelly that sticks and burns intensely

• Difficult extinguishing 

• Gelling agent + petrochemical - stickiness 

• 800 - 1200 DEG

• Deoxygenates air -> carbon monoxide + carbon dioxide = unconsciousness, asyphyxiation 
  

Thermite:

• mixture of metal powders => ignited - extremely high temperatures

• Exothermic - ignite -> melting metal 

• >2500 deg

• Modern welding processes, incendiary  

White phosphorus:

• Allotrope

• Discovered: Hennig Brandt 

• burn fiercely upon contact with oxygen

• causing severe burns

• Safely handled underwater - intense flames when dry 

• Breathe in: “phossy jaw” - poor wound healing & breakdown of jaw bone

Science - composition behind Greek Fire

• Light petroleum or naphtha

• Pitch

• Sulfur

• Pine or cedar resin

• Lime

• Bitumen

• Not extinguished by water; intensifies flames instead

• Decreased use: loss of recipe, sophisticated weapons 

Topic definitions

Ignition:

• Fuel reaches temp to start burning 
  

Combustion:

• Chemical reaction between fuel and oxidizer

• complete/incomplete depending on O2

Flashpoint:

• Lowest point for liquid fuel to vaporise -> ignitable mixture in air (lower FP = higher ignition)

• Flammability 

Fire tetrahedron:

chemical chain reaction to sustain itself 

• Ongoing combustion releases energy

history of fire

• Traces of campfire 1 million years ago - charred animals' bones, plant ash; in Wonderwerk Cave South Africa (site of hominin habitation for 2 million years)

• Found evidence of Homo erectus in layers of rock of axes, stone flakes and tools - suggested familiarity with fire - Francesco Berna, archaeology profession 

  • Lived 1.8 million - 200,000 years ago 

• Human fire control - 1.5 million years ago; but rely on open sites, could be from wildfires 

  • Wonderwerk: protected environment, “earliest evidence for burning”

• Primatologist Richard Wrangham: Homo erectus tamed fire 

  • Cooking = consume more calories -> larger brains 

  • Physical changes in early hominins; small teeth and stomachs when Homo erectus evolved 

• Excavating since 2004; more evidence is needed to see if Homo erectus actually cooked food

fire starting

Lighter

• Fuel to produce flame - Usually butane 

• Lighter depressed - release and vaporise butane into gas -> ignited

  • Butane in a lighter - pressurized, exists as a liquid 

Match

• Ignite when struck against a rough surface 

• Revolutionised fire starting 
  

Lenses 

• Focus sunlight 

• Dry conditions 

Hand drill

• Wooden spindle rotated on wooden base (hearth) - friction for heat 

Fire striker

• Metal to strike flint, generate sparks 

Safety matches

• Struck only against a prepared surface (on the box)

• Non-poisonous - no phosphorus 

Historical: ants

• Large, clear heads to focus sun and start fires

fire as art

• 15000-year-old stone art

• Ice age Europe 

• Social time around the fire to chat with friends and family 

• In PLOS ONE - limestone and 3d model of 15k-year-old carvings 

• Proximity to flames animated the creatures 

• 50 limestone plaquettes found at Monastruc rock shelter, river Aveyron (South France) 

• Ice age: flint and stone to carve horses, ibex, reindeer etc 

• Artists: Magdalenian culture - hunter-gatherers 23000 - 14000 years ago 

  • Lascaux cave 

  • Rockshelter - Swimming Reindeer - 13000-year tusk sculpture of 2 reindeer 

  • Magdelianian plaquettes in modern Spain, Portugal, UK’s Channel ISlands 

  • Rocks from Montastruc - created w/ limestone cliff - show thermal fractures + pink discolouration from fire 

  • Plaquettes: British Museum - where lost to originally excavated in the mid-1860s 

  • Art intentionally made and viewed in a circle around a heart - for creativity 

  • “Light flickers, popping in and out”, Izzy Wisher, PhD Durham University 

    • Use VR for fire, and orientation of heat damage - arrange 3d around the virtual heart = OG pattern 

• Seeing patterns: pareidolia

  • Helped us survive - eg. detect predators 

• Ice age artists - cracks in rocks to be legs 

• Needham: “see forms flicker in and out, people finish it off” 

• Animals have multiple heads, extra legs - play around w light

• Jill Cook, British Museum curator, Ice Age specialist: plaquettes - quickly made unlike Magdelenian cave art 

  • Act of drawing/ summoning spirits 

  • Deliberate burning - repressing? 

• Recent excavation of Gandil and Plantage - same overhang as Montastruc  - could reveal more about how they were used

Hawaii firework accident 

• Killed 3 people, wounded more than 20 in Honolulu

• Lit mortar-style aerials tipped over onto unlit fireworks 

• Another firework explosion in Oahu 

• Honolulu major Rick Blangiardi “illegal fireworks, drain first responders, disrupt neighborhoods”

• Deaths: 2 women, cause of death pending - trying to identify 3rd 

• Josh Green - Hawaii governor: Flew the 6 burn patients -> Arizona because Hawaii have only 1 specialised unit 

• 2023: illegal fireworkds task force

  • Sezied shipping containers, but illegal fireworks sitll smuggled - 227000 pounds seized 

• Rep Gregg Takayama: set fireworks when younger, but not compared to those on black market today; modern fireworks = explosive bombs 

• Doran (VP of Pearl City) - fireworks = outlawed - misconception as a tradition 

• Fear to report, as a small island - eg Takushi, being threatened after telling to stop launching illegal fireworks - accused for not respecting culture 

•  Illegal: over 50 pounds of fireworks

History of fireworks (composition & purpose?)

Made of:

• 1st: natural firecrackers: hollow bamboo stalks explode in fire - overheat of air pockets 

• Potassium nitrate, sulphur, charcoal = black powder (gunpowder) -> in hollow bamboo stalks (later paper tubes)

• Song Dynasty - for entertainment

  • Paper tubes of gunpowder - crafted into different shapes 

Purpose:

• Ward off spirits 

Evolution to bright, colourful displays

• Renaissance: Italian pyrotechnicians: aerial shells to burst in colour, rocket-style; metallic powders into gunpowder  

• To europe in 13th century; 15th century: religious festivals & entertainment “enchant their subjects”

• Metal chlorides for colour in the 18th - 19th century