Re: fire-eating

[Brad Shue <jshue@comp.uark.edu>]

On Thu, 2 Jan 1997 JBRAUNSDORF@delphi.com wrote:
> Hello all,
>        While there I watched two people do fire-eating as part of a dance and
> magic show. They had sticks with a padded end that appeared to be soaked in
> a flammable liquid (alcohol?) that they lit and played with.

Most likely pure ethanol.

>   One common trick seen often on tv is to put the end in your mouth and put
> the flame out. I suspect that the fluid soaked pad does not maintain a hight
>  temperature when you cut off the air and so it could be done without too
> much damage. However, this woman put one out, then held the other one in 
> her mouth with flames coming out for about 10 seconds and somehow got some
> flames to stay in her mouth when she removed the stick and then used those
> to re-ignite the one that was not burning.

Sounds like she had a few before the show shots!  Anyway, ethanol has a
very low "flash point".  Also, the part of the flame that was in contact
with her body was not the hot part of the flame so the vapors kept the
heat away.  

>    she also took four of these and ran in up her leg and arm in contact wiht
> the skin without apparent burning. When she brought them to me in the audience
> fo taking a picture the bundle of four certainly was not something I wanted 
> to rub on my body.

The flame does not burn on the liquid, it burns on the fumes.  In fact,
the evaporation of the liquid into fumes probably helps to cool the skin
from any combustion heat.  Cook with wine and light it on fire, the flame
burns well above the food.  The base of a flame is its coolest point.
--
James Bradford Shue                             jshue@comp.uark.edu
University of Arkansas                          Voice phone:(501) 575-6059
Physics Lab/Demo Curator                        FAX Number: (501) 575-4580
WWW Page					http://comp.uark.edu/~jshue