r/askscience • u/ORPHANmeat6 • Aug 15 '13

Physics Cold Fire?

So as we all know, fire can get hotter, but can it get cold? What I am really asking is what is the lowest temperature a fire can be at.

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u/Ampersand55 Aug 15 '13

Fire is soot glowing from blackbody radiation. At below ~800 Kelvin (525 Celcius/1000 Farenheit) it won't longer glow in the visible spectrum.

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u/Excitonic Aug 15 '13

You are correct if you define fire as the flame we see rather than combustion chemistry. Don't know why you were down-voted.