bp's science: breathing fire (v.1)

My older brothers are around 10 years older than me. And as a kid, I recall them doing lots of cool older person stuff like traveling to NY, restoring old cars, composing albums, running track, playing football, and breathing fire. I was intrigued at the fire bit. I mean, who wouldn't be? And I decided that when I got old enough, I'd take a go at it.

Around the age of 17, I asked my brother if he could assist me in breathing fire. Whenever he had done it during my childhood it seemed like a cinch, but when I came to him that March afternoon, he was a little hesitant. "Okay, Ash," he said, "we can do it, but we must take all safety precautions." This was the real deal I thought. I soon found out the safety precautions consisted of moving our operation into the backyard and wearing ski gloves. He then asked my younger brother if he'd like to join us so we could make a huge fire ball. Younger brother gladly obliged.

Our first step was to refine our spew tactics. We had to spit a huge mouthful of corn starch out into the air and get it as far away from our bodies (and the flame) as we could. This required some practice. So, one by one, we filled our mouths full of the stuff and starting refining. It took some lung capacity and some force, but by the third or fourth mouthful we felt ready (and a little light-headed). Then my older brother got out some newspaper, rolled it into a cylinder, and frayed one side's edges. He then lit the frayed edges and held the paper at arms length. At the count of three, we blew. The flame was huge! It was bright, and hot, and quick. Then it was over. So we did it again, and then again. And that time, the ski gloves got scorched. So we stopped. We got a photo of the magic a little after the peak flame.


So, as I mentioned before, there is science to this whole thing but I'll let you research that yourself if you so choose.