Putting out a magnesium fire with water - GIF

[old kodger]

Hmmm, as I recall the poms found out during the Falklands war,that if you build a battle ship with an aluminium superstructure (to keep it lighter), if the ally gets hot enough to burn, it's nearly impossible to extinguish.

[DIYSwede]

In my tech college metal shop, there was an old all-round coarse grit pedestal grinder, up to a certain point.
Pretty neglected, probably never cleaned, so grinding dust built up in and around it,
until it one day set itself ablaze. The fire burned tru the covers, melted itself thru its pedestal top plate etc.

Analysis was: all ferrous grinding dust rusted in the pretty moist conditions in there, and quite a few did aluminium grinding there also.
Providence saw to it, that the Fe2O3-Al mix reached the necessary proportions for a Thermite fire.
I wasn't there when it happened, but it certainly got me interested in the Artistic possibilities of Thermite /Electron (Mg) incendiaries.

[old kodger]

It's been(not) reported by firefighters in Australia, and I'm led to believe California, that the fires they are currently fighting, are very much hotter than fires in the past.
A local researcher in Aus has managed to establish that "chem trails" contain aluminium, iron, boron,amongst other things. this stuff has been sprayed in the atmosphere for at least ten years and legislation here has prevented any sort of back burning for at least that long. What we have here is a build up, on already volatile fuel, So bush fires, or thermite fires?
I'm sorry if this post hi-jacks the thread, but it seemed relevant.