Skeptics Stack Exchange
Skeptics Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [fire]

combustion or burning, in which substances combine chemically with oxygen from the air and typically give out bright light, heat, and smoke.

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Do wooden building fires get hotter than 600°C?

After the recent Notre-Dame de Paris fire, there has been a heavily re-posted tweet going around in response to an earlier claim that a golden cross did not melt or deform - due to an act of God. Kaylee Crain: "After all the aftermath and…
Bilkokuya
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Are environmentalists largely responsible for Californian forest fires?

An article on Reason, and the associated video, claim that the severity of the recent forest fires are largely due to environmental regulations that prevent good forest management, along with an insistence on putting out small fires that would have…
Paul Johnson
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Do wombats share their burrows during fires?

In the wake of the devastating bushfires currently burning in Australia, an image has been widely shared on social media: Here is one example from Twitter, retweeted 11K times: While I have an open mind, I am suspicious for three reasons: It is…
Oddthinking
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Does this picture show an Arizona fire department extinguishing a fire in Mexico?

This was posted by the Swiss news portal watson.ch:
user41782
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Are the 3 World Trade Center towers the only steel-framed high-rises to collapse due to fire?

Since the events of 9-11 it has been claimed several times that no other skyscraper in history has ever collapsed from fire damage. It's usually used as a part of the argument that fire alone cannot bring down a steel-frames building. The 911…
apex_predator
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Does staring at a flame slow brain activity?

I was looking for an answer to this question on the tubes and I was amazed to discover an impressive set of completely crap answers to this question. Photo by kayaker1204. Creative Common License. After a long search, the closest I could find to an…
Sklivvz
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Was the "Worst Twerk Fail EVER - Girl Catches Fire!" video staged?

Caitlin Heller posted a video on Youtube titled "Worst Twerk Fail EVER - Girl Catches Fire!". There have been many articles about it, e.g. Telegraph; NY Daily News; AJC. Was it staged? I watched it over 10 times in a row nonstop, and I'm still not…
Emmett
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Do smoke alarms save lives?

Almost all fire safety organizations and codes require the use of smoke alarms in new business and residential construction. The idea is that they save lives, as mentioned in this article from FEMA. This article from Freakanomics calls into…
SAJ14SAJ
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Fighting fire with electricity. Plausible?

The article "Fighting fire with volts: How water hoses could be replaced with electric wands" gives exciting news about possible new way of extinguishing fire, researched by Ludovico Cademartiri, Ph.D.: Scientists connected a 600-watt amplifier to…
Egle
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In 2017, was the Plasco Building destroyed in a controlled demolition?

On January 19, 2017, the 17-storey steel-framed Plasco in Tehran collapsed after a large fire broke out, seemingly putting to rest the question of whether a steel-framed building could collapse entirely due to fire. But the well-known group…
Abdullah
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Are these photos of burned home surrounded by pristine trees in California due to the forest fires real?

These photos are circulating on social media. Are they real? How can a forest fire burn homes in the center of a forest without burning the trees? Portion of Paradise, CA after the "Forest Fire". No, we'll call it what it is: murder. Because…
Chloe
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Can overheating laptops cause fire?

I have come across a Facebook post from an unverified and unreliable source, which claims that a fire was started using heat as a source alone. Here is the exact post which is the subject of the question. LAPTOP USERS: BE AWARE! A couple lost their…
Barath Bushan
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Does having your bedroom door closed while sleeping improve fire safety?

The UL (formerly Underwriter Laboratories) has a Fire Safety Research Institute (FSRI) that claims that sleeping with the bedroom door closed reduces the risk of being killed in a fire: UL FSRI research on fire service horizontal ventilation, begun…
John Doe
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Are rising temperatures making fires worse?

Al Gore tweeted: Ferocious wildfire in California forces evacuation of ~3,000 [...] Rising temperatures are making fires worse. (Emphasis mine) Is this true?
user5582
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Is filling multiple vehicles in one transaction at a gas station a safety hazard?

According to this gas station, pumping gasoline into more than one vehicle is a serious safety hazard: The gas station making this claim charges different customers different prices per gallon depending on their level of activity as reflected in…
WBT
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