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that’s where the air is.
    “It’s all about fuel,” Fuller lectures. “You are what you eat, and fire is no different. You can determine its severity, its origin, its direction and rate of spread, and how long it burned, by the fuel in the structure.”
    Jack aces the chemistry test.
    Fuller passes out the results, which apparently launch him to new rhetorical heights.
    “So,” he asks, “what happens in a fire?
    “It has all the dramatic structure of your classic three-act play, gentlemen. It has the rhythm of a love affair.
    “Oxidation occurs. Act One: The Smoldering Phase. The seduction, if you will, the chemical reaction between oxygen and solid molecules in which the oxygen tries to induce heat in the solid matter. The seduction might take a fraction of a second—in the case of a hot number like gasoline or kerosene or some other liquid accelerant, the roundheels of the flammable street corner, I might tell you. Switching metaphors, liquid accelerants are the aphrodisiacs of the fire seduction. They are the storied Spanish fly, the fine wine, the manly cologne, the American Express Platinum Card left casually by the side of the couch. They can get the passion ignited in a big hurry.
    “Or the smoldering phase might last hours or even days. The material, the fuel, wants to be wined and dined, courted, taken to dinner and the movies. Come to Sunday dinner and meet my parents. But fire is a patient seducer, comrades. If it can just hang in there long enough to generate a little heat, if the affair is given a little air to breathe, it lingers. A kiss on the neck, a hand under the blouse, the steamy heat of the backseat at a drive-in movie, fellows. Working, working, trying to melt the fuel to liquid and then into burning gas. A questing hand under theskirt, trying to generate enough heat to reach the ignition point, smoldering, smoldering and then …
    “Ignition. Act Two: The Free-Burning Phase. The flash point is reached. Open flames, my boys. Passion. Heated gas is lighter than air so it rises—witness your Goodyear blimp. It starts eating up the air and then it hits the ceiling. If the fire is hot enough to ignite the ceiling materials you have more ignition. The fire might even blast a hole in the roof to get to that easy, tasty air. The heated gases themselves become a source of radiation, now spreading the heat downward to ignite material below. This is why the ceiling might burn, by the way, before the furniture does.
    “It all depends on your fuel, gentlemen. Is she an ice maiden with a high flash point and a tepid HRR? The affair will die from lack of passion. She’s a frigid bitch, my jolly boys—do your worst, she won’t respond. Or is she a hot number? A low flash point, a steaming HRR? Then hold on, buckoes, you are in for a ride. If she’s hot enough and big enough, your fire will reach a critical temperature. The heat will radiate down from the ceiling hot enough to overwhelm the ignition point of all the materials underneath it, and then the fairies start flying.
    “What do I mean by that esoteric and somewhat effeminate reference regarding flying fairies? Just before flashover, boys, you might see little pockets of gas in the air ignite—little licks of flame dancing in the air. That is the ‘fairies flying,’ and that is the time to put it in Reverse, gentlemen, because if you see the fairies flying, it is a prelude to—
    “WHOOSH! Act Three: The Flashover Phase. All the exposed surfaces reach ignition point, and now you have an out-of-control fire. An undeniable passion that sweeps everything before it. Nothing can resist it, every substance opens its legs and joins the orgy. The heat is transferred upward by the air, downward by radiation and sideways by conduction. It thrashes in passion in all directions. The intensity
doubles
with each 18-degree rise in temp. It gets hotter and faster, faster and hotter. This is fire’s orgasm, gentlemen, the fiery consummation of the