Magnesium fire, to light the sky...

[MDJH]

Let's assume I hypothetically managed to get my hands on a large quantity of magnesium ribbon, and I decided I'd use it to start a bright fire. I'd use something underneath it to ensure the fire was strong, (such as gasoline) but the key component of the show would be the magnesium itself.

 

First off, I assume it'd be dangerous to have the flame viewable directly, so the flame itself would only be recorded by camera. But let's say I had everyone involved facing away from the flame, and instead looking at the buildings, the ground in front of them, and maybe the clouds depending on the conditions. Which brings me to my next question... how would the weather conditions (assuming it was at night) affect this light show?

[Moontanman]

Well i see no reason to use gasoline, just pile up the ribbon and throw a road flare in the pile. If the sky is overcast it should light up the surrounding country side and get the police there a little faster....

 

When i was a little boy i lived near, about a quarter mile or so, an industrial plant called FMC, they were working on some sort of military parts and a pile of several hundred pounds of magnesium caught on fire from welding sparks. The fire lit up the sky for miles around, mountains 5 miles away were lit up, it was impressive. later on i got see a few ounces of it burn, it was still impressive. Don't do this at home kids

[MDJH]

Well i see no reason to use gasoline, just pile up the ribbon and throw a road flare in the pile. If the sky is overcast it should light up the surrounding country side and get the police there a little faster....

Do you have to be so condescending? I was not sure if there was any restriction on doing something like this if it was done in an area that would not set fire (such as a flat region of barren dirt... far enough from actual houses that people could only see it from the reflection on the clouds) and I do not know how far the light would reach. That is sort of why I am asking this now, to find out what the implications of this would be, from both a social and directly physical perspective.

 

But hey, if you want to sarcastically berate someone for asking questions that is up to you...

[Moontanman]

Do you have to be so condescending? I was not sure if there was any restriction on doing something like this if it was done in an area that would not set fire (such as a flat region of barren dirt... far enough from actual houses that people could only see it from the reflection on the clouds) and I do not know how far the light would reach. That is sort of why I am asking this now, to find out what the implications of this would be, from both a social and directly physical perspective.

 

But hey, if you want to sarcastically berate someone for asking questions that is up to you...

 

 

I am sorry dude, my intent was not to berate you in any way, there is no need for gasoline to start magnesium, it really don't take much and it takes off like gasoline. I would imagine that you would need all kinds of permits to burn any amount of magnesium greater than few ounces. Like I said several hundred pounds was an uncontrollable wild fire.... oh yeah, the UV from the big fire killed trees nearby and burnt the skin of people who tried to put it out, they were quite unsucessful...

 

If you want to do something relatively cool and not likely to draw the authorities get a pile of beer cans to burn, I've kept a campfire going on the beach for several hours with nothing but empty beer cans and lots of drunk buddies, lol

Edited July 22, 2010 by Moontanman

[insane_alien]

Moontan wasn't being condescending. he just implied that something so obvious is going to attract the attention of the law as something like that is going to have a lot of consequences and require some planning. he was trying out that thing called humour. i thought he was moderately successful, nothing world class but worth a chuckle.

 

one thing would be people driving near the site, its at night so it will be very obvious, they'll turn to look at it, be at least temporarily blinded/night vision gone and potentially crash. same goes for pilots who will have a clearer view of said fire.

 

so yeah, the police and firebrigade WILL show up if you do that and there WILL be charges. not to mention you'll be directly responsible for a bunch of morons going 'look look aliens!' and 'the governments testing super secret weapons on our back door, we're being secretly irradiated/genetically altered/experimented upon' please don't inflict that upon society.

 

when you're doing something that will affect a radius of a few miles you generally need to get permission from the authorities. and for good reason.

[Moontanman]

Lets be clear, how much would you consider a large quantity? An ounce? A pound? Half a ton? Several tons? You'd be famous for sure if its the latter.... quite possibly posthumously if you couldn't get far enough away fast enough

Edited July 22, 2010 by Moontanman

[MDJH]

Lets be clear, how much would you consider a large quantity? An ounce? A pound? Half a ton? Several tons? You'd be famous for sure if its the latter.... quite possibly posthumously if you couldn't get far enough away fast enough

I'm not sure what "a large quantity" is myself. I've heard it can be fairly expensive. I was thinking somewhere along the lines of a few ounces... so that I could get a strong bright fire, without spending too much on the magnesium to light. Part of the reason I vaguely said "large quantity" was because I'm not sure how much fog it would cut through on a foggy night, (or whether refraction through the fog would also have an affect) or to reach the clouds if it were overcast, etc... let alone what the implications of it would be. I guess I should check to see what regulations there are on such things too but first I wanted to know a bit more about the chemical reaction in and of itself.

 

Also, the reason I mentioned gasoline was because it was a liquid fuel and would easily distribute the heat to the whole thing rapidly. Would a piece of paper underneath the magnesium suffice?

Edited July 22, 2010 by MDJH

[Mr Skeptic]

Hm, it would be pretty hilarious to lug a couple tons of magnesium up to the peak of a mountain and light it on fire on an overcast night. Well, hilarious except for the fact that magnesium melts at 650 C and can burn at around 3,100 C, so you'd have a magnesium volcano which would be pretty destructive. That and you'd probably spend the rest of your life in prison.

 

The autoignition temperature of magnesium is 630 C, not too hot, and you shouldn't need the temperature to reach that high if you have an ignition source (the autoignition temperature is the temperature at which it will spontaneously ignite in the atmosphere).

[Moontanman]

A couple of tons of magnesium on top of a mountain? Talk about "Fire on the Mountain" Lightning in the air!

 

Way back in the day you could get mag rims for cars and motorcycles that were actually made of principally magnesium, a car with those rims that caught on fire was spectacular and almost impossible to put out with the then current technology....