Flames
At least in the colder months, part of my morning routine is to light the wood stove. The methane heating system wakes up much earlier than me, so we use that for washing and breakfast. I light the stove calmly once the morning has begun.
I remove the ashes from the previous day, accumulated in the drawer, clean the door glass with a dry sponge, and, if there isn’t enough in the wood-carrying trunk in the house, I go and get a bagful from below. The supermarket net bags are ideal for this.
I put in a few logs and the fire starter, light it, and while I listen to a podcast with the day’s press review, the flames begin to come to life. Slowly, the house fills with a different, more welcoming warmth while the methane heating system lowers.
Birth
A flame is a chemical reaction that produces light and heat. The molecules of a flammable gas brought to a certain temperature break down and recombine with oxygen, forming new compounds and releasing energy.
Wood begins to release gases capable of burning at temperatures between 150°C and 300°C, depending on the type of wood. It is necessary to heat at least a part of it to those temperatures for the process to begin. These gases must be brought to a temperature between 300°C and 500°C for them to ignite. The fire starter serves this purpose. It is made of a highly flammable material that triggers the reaction quickly but does not last long. During the short period in which this initial flame is lit, it is necessary to extract from the wood a sufficient quantity of combustible gases to allow this reaction to self-sustain: the flames produced by the gases extracted from the wood must in turn heat other wood, which, by burning, extracts more gas, and so on.
The process is not without its difficulties. The wood must be dry because otherwise, too much water vapor would be present among the released gases, which would prevent combustion. The surface area of wood exposed to the initial flame must be sufficiently large to allow the reaction to self-sustain. A small flame in contact with a piece of wood that is too large attacks only a small portion of it, the little gas that is extracted from the surface is not enough to extract new gas from the part of the wood far from the flame, the section attacked by the flame soon becomes covered with substances that are no longer combustible, more heat is needed to extract the gas from the internal parts, and this will only be possible when the fire is at full strength.
For ignition to occur, pieces of wood cut small enough are needed, so as to expose as much surface area as possible to the initial flame. Alternatively, the wood must be arranged so as to maximize surface exposure to the flames.
It is then necessary to ensure that the reaction is supplied with enough oxygen, the stove’s draft must be open and the stove door must not be completely sealed so that air can also enter from there. It is also necessary to ensure that the unburned gases produced by the first ignition do not suffocate the flames but circulate toward the chimney.
It is not enough to bring an egg and a sperm together to start a human life that promises not to end too soon. It takes two people who love each other, who can lower their defenses and create the intimacy necessary for the gametes to meet, but who can also give themselves a common life plan. It takes a suitable work, financial, and social situation. They need to have faith in the future, and also a bit of luck. And madness.
Infancy
The flame produced by the kindling is now extinguished. The wood must fend for itself. If we have arranged things properly the flames produced by the logs at the bottom begin to lick the upper layers, and the surfaces of wood side by side feed each other: the heat produced by the combustion of one surface extracts gas from the one opposite, many small combustion chambers are formed. The hydrocarbons extracted, mainly methane, in turn, catch fire and the flames develop more and more.
A lot of attention is still needed. The stove door should be gradually closed and the draft adjusted. Excess air would cause a violent fire that would tend to extinguish quickly, and would also cool the interior. Instead, the combustion chamber needs to get hotter and hotter. Sometimes it is necessary to make some corrections to the arrangement of the logs to allow air and smoke to circulate better.
A small child needs a lot of care, he becomes more and more autonomous, but our presence around him is indispensable. We arrange things in the environment around him so that he doesn’t get hurt, but we have to give him some freedom so that he starts interacting with the world. We provide him with the food we think is right for him but we begin to listen to his personal tastes. We give him affection, but also rigor.
Youth
By now there is a very lively flame. We can seal the door and lower the draft. The fire is still more like a bonfire than a stove fire: it burns because there are high flames and surfaces still intact. The wood crackles, a sign that we are beginning to extract gas from the inner states of the logs, the crackling is due to the internal gas increasing in volume and making its way outwards breaking through the non-combustible layers created by the combustion of the surface, a chemist would use the term pyrolysis.
It could still be a flash in the pan, once all the surfaces are burned the fire would go out. For the stove to stay lit, the refractory material lining the interior needs to accumulate heat. We have to slow down the combustion to facilitate this development, it takes time. We adjust the draft so that the flames are not too high, but we can’t close it too much: it must remain a somewhat lively fire to stay lit.
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We begin to perceive some heat due to radiation through the ceramic glass of the door, but the majolica cladding of the stove is still cold. The magnetic thermometer on the flue indicates 200°C.
When you’re young you can’t understand it, but it’s necessary for your exuberance to be somewhat repressed from the outside. You feel like you have the energy to do anything, you feel like you understand the world better than anyone, but the world you perceive is not the real world. You don’t realize that excess energy won’t last forever and that in the later stages of life you will only survive if you have used at least some of that energy to build something more lasting.
Maturity
It took well over an hour, but finally, the refractory walls have accumulated enough heat and are starting to give it back. The initial logs have transformed into a thick carpet of embers.
If all went well, no excessive soot was produced and the door glass is still transparent. Soot is produced by incomplete combustion, it is a black powder made up of microscopic particles of carbon and small amounts of other unburned or partially oxidized materials.
In the well-lit stove at this point, a few fragments of almost completely consumed logs remain. There are faint flames, almost halos or glows between the half-charred logs. Compared to the previous phase, the combustion chamber appears empty.
It’s time to add more wood. Now even a single log, even the largest ones, catches fire easily. The combined effect of the embers underneath and the heat radiated from the inner lining of the stove is able to extract the combustible gas from the innermost parts of the wood, which ignites brightly as soon as it is introduced.
Gradually the heat is transferred from the refractory material to the metal structure and from this to the majolica cladding which accumulates the heat and spreads it slowly into the environment.
The flue temperature is over 400°C. The fan above the stove starts to turn, thanks to a thermoelectric module that transforms the temperature difference between the top of the stove and the surrounding environment into electricity, it’s not much use but it’s nice to look at.
Every time is different. Fires are never the same. The arrangement of the embers, the more or less intense areas of light and heat, the intensity of the swirling flames. Each fire has its own identity due to thousands of competing causes, the type of wood, the degree of humidity, the initial arrangement of the logs, the care taken during lighting and certainly some butterfly flapping its wings in Hong Kong.
Even in our adult lives we are all different, perhaps for similar reasons.
Perhaps we do not perceive a precise purpose of our own, but the feeling of functioning I believe is common to everyone at this stage. Perhaps we still feel there are goals to be achieved, but we soon realize that they wouldn’t make much difference, matters internal to the stove.
Sometimes we perceive someone looking at us from behind the glass to see that everything is okay and to enjoy the warmth we are producing.
Old Age and Death
We are getting ready for the end of the day. We stop putting in new wood. Slowly the color of the embers tends towards dark red, and as the unburnt material covers them, towards white. The inner lining is still very hot and will be able to completely extract the fuel contained in the wood remaining inside. If we haven’t closed the draft excessively, there is still enough oxygen to burn everything, albeit more slowly. If there is not enough oxygen, soot will form which will blacken the glass. It doesn’t matter, it will be easy to clean in the morning.
Even in the way they go out, not all fires are the same.
The outer majolica is still very hot. It will provide heat for several hours. Slowly the fan slows down and stops.
Men also die in different ways. Some do it faster, others take longer. Some with noise, others more peaceful. Some suffering, others more serene. All wondering if it was worth anything.
The guy behind the glass goes who knows where. Tomorrow he’ll light another fire.
