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Fire on Mars?

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Fri, 2013-04-12 16:11
#1
Hailspork Hailspork's picture
Fire on Mars?
So, I'm planning an adventure involving pyrokinesis and Mars. I remember Mars has a lot of methane in the atmosphere but not a lot of oxygen; while I don't plan on doing anything fancy with the mechanics, I'm wondering from a story/flavor perspective, how does fire work on Mars? Do things keep burning? Do methane pockets ignite? Is fire quickly suppressed due to low O2? Do burned victims smolder? Should I even replace the pyrokinesis with intense heat? This would be outside of the domes. Thanks.
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Fri, 2013-04-12 17:39
OneTrikPony OneTrikPony's picture
My understanding is that
My understanding is that there isn't enough oxygen on mars to support a flame. They've been working on introducing methane as a greenhouse gas for the last 50 years but at this point it would only be trace amounts.
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Sat, 2013-04-13 15:17
Trinary Trinary's picture
Chemistry
It depends on what, exactly, you're trying to light on fire. While the atmosphere might not contain enough oxygen to support combustion of imported wood; certain industrial compounds are less picky about how and when they burst into flames. Chlorine Trifluoride, for instance is a superior oxidizer than oxygen; which means that it can burn material that's already been burned. It will also ignite sand. Wonderful stuff. http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2008/02/26/sand_wont_save_you_this_...
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Sun, 2013-04-14 03:56
Hailspork Hailspork's picture
Interesting article.
Interesting article. No, I wasn't really looking at anything too fancy like ClF3 or FOOF, just going for descriptions of the aftermath of people and their possessions attacked by the equivalence of a plasma rifle. I had recalled reading that there was some early terraforming with microbes creating oxygen, but I wasn't sure how far along it was.
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Sat, 2013-04-27 11:22
jackgraham jackgraham's picture
At 1/3 gravity, fire, smoke,
At 1/3 gravity, fire, smoke, and structures on fire will act a bit differently, too. Cinders hang in the air longer, etc.
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J A C K   G R A H A M :: Hooray for Earth!   http://eclipsephase.com :: twitter @jackgraham @faketsr :: Google+Jack Graham
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