Waterbury evening Democrat., 1904-04-11
ABOUT PUTTING OUT FIRES.
Not Many People Really Understand How It Is That Water Ex-
 tinguishes Flames.

"How does water put out fire?" is a question that seems easy enough to an swer but when 1t comes to be explained the person who attempts 1t, unless he is versed in chemistry and science, is liable to find himself in a hole, says the Ban gor (Me.) Commercial. The question seems simple enough on the face of 1t, but there are many simple chemical problems that. 80 to make it anything but easy to solve,
 In order to understand the action of water on fire one must have some inti- mate knowledge of the properties of fire, Fire says Prof Garrett F. Serviss, 'is a form of chemical combustion in which flames make their appearance. There may be combustion without flames. but not Yithcut heat. Wood in burning always gives off flames, as do some kinds of coal, but there are other kinds of coal that do not.
 "In the process of combustion, there must be two things. at least, concerned. In the first place, there must be the combustible, or thing that burns. and in the next case there must be some sup porter of combustion When wood burns in the open air tie wood is the combustible and the air the supporter of the combustion"
 Bangor people who have seen bis ] fires have probably noticed that during ! the. progress of the blaze there have been times when the flames seemingly died out, would blaze up again with redoubled fury. The reason for this is that the water which has been poured on has supplied oxygen to the flames, giving them renewed vigor This is the case In high wind, when the fire be- coming strengthened by the fresh oxy- gen, gets fiercer and fiercer and is thus harder to put out. In dead calm. q fire is always easy to extinguish for the reason that all the oxygen in the { vicinity of the flames has been con- sumed
 A little water is of no use in cx- tinguishing a fire for the very reason that it is not enough to offset the heat of the flames but is set off into it's component parts and is burnt up in the flanes-the oxygen only making the flames fiercer.
 The question now arises how a lot of water, instead of supporting combustion, does the opposite and extinguishes the flames. The reason is that a huge vol ' urpe Of water falling upon the flames is too great for the heat of the flames to disassociate into its parts. but in- stead sort of extinguishes the flames. Water has a remarkable property. that of high specific heat Many people in watching burning building have no ticed the Bremen pouring streams ol water on the blaze aud the accompany ing hissing noise and rising steam. The formation of the steam has suddenly drawn an immense amount of heat from the combustion going on in the building and so has tended to cool off the build ing materials and subdue the fury ot the flames.
 Because of the great specific heat ca pacity ef water and the consequent ab- sorption of heat from the fire to form the steam, there IS not enough heat left to release the oxygen from the hydro. gen, or. in other words to set the two combined gases burning, and thus the constant streams of water pouring ir and on the fire and the clouds of steam rising serve as sort of blanket, which shuts off the air from the flames and prevents them from obtaining more oxy- gen. This constantly being repeated tends to deaden the blaze more anc more until 1t finally dies out.