How can fires be extinguished?

Answer 1

There are two key elements of fire combustion and oxygen. If you deprive fire of either then it will extinguish. Another means of containing a fire is to create a fire break wide enough to prevent the flames from bridging the break. Thus water is used to extinguish the combustion of a forest fire as you cannot remove the oxygen. For something like an oil pan or rig fire the method is to starve the fire of oxygen by covering with a towel or using explosives to create a vacuum.

Answer 2

Fires are generally extinguished by removing part of the process that makes them keep going, sometimes called the "fire tetrahedron": fuel, oxygen, heat, chemical reaction.

For example, putting water on a big fire causes the water to turn to steam, which is a cooling process, removing the heat from the fire. Water that gets onto the surface of the fuel also reduces the amount of oxygen available for burning and changes the fuel by raising its ignition temperature. It's harder to light wet fuel than dry fuel.

Some fire extinguishing methods involve "smothering" the fire, i.e. cutting off the supply of oxygen. Carbon dioxide and foam extinguishers are examples of extinguishers that work on this principle. They also absorb much of the heat from the fire, which provides a secondary, lesser fire extinguishing benefit.

Some fire require adding substances to the fire that interrupt the chemical reaction. Most of these are halogenated organics - broadly referred to as Halons. At high temperatures, halons decompose to release halogen atoms that combine readily with active hydrogen atoms, quenching flame propagation reactions even when adequate fuel, oxygen, and heat remain. The preferred halogens are bromine and iodine although chlorine and fluorine can also help quench fires.

Answer 3

what is the word containd mean ?