This type of burning, called spontaneous combustion, causes many fires. Very rapid burning may cause explosions like those produced by gunpowder and dynamite. Here, oxidation takes place so rapidly that great volumes of gases are produced. These require many hundreds of times the space that was formerly occupied by the gunpowder or dynamite before it was oxidized. These gases expand so rapidly and violently that they produce an explosion.
Firefighters battle an electrical fire, one of many kinds of fires.
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