If you’ve ever watched a fire and seen thick, angry plumes of smoke rising up to the sky, you may have wondered what makes smoke the color it is and what that means? Black smoke looks the most toxic of all smoke colors but is it? What should you do about this kind of smoke?
Black smoke is a result of the burning of heavy fuels or synthetic materials. This can mean that the fumes are particularly toxic and shouldn’t be inhaled if you are exposed to them. However, most smoke can be toxic and dangerous to varying degrees.
What Is Smoke?
Smoke is simply a byproduct produced when a fuel burns but is not consumed in its entirety (incomplete combustion).
In coal fire, for example, the smoke particles are what we might think of as “ash”. It depends on the fire and the product being burned and how well it is being burned as to what kind of smoke may be produced.
Thus, smoke tends to be made up of tiny particles of either partially oxidized or fully oxidized or unreacted fuel particles. It can be poisonous if the particles contain toxic elements or compounds and its smoke is very dangerous in the event of a building fire, where it can cause suffocation even if there is no toxic element to it.
In fact, the majority of who people die in a fire are from smoke inhalation rather than being burned. This is both because the smoke can contain many very toxic chemicals and because the smoke can displace the clean oxygen, leaving nothing to breathe.
Black Smoke:
Black smoke tends to occur when heavy fuels are being burned and you can see black fumes coming off vehicles that burn heavy fuel oils, for example.
Black smoke is a result of the burning of heavy fuels or synthetic materials. This can mean that the fumes are particularly toxic and shouldn’t be inhaled if you are exposed to them. However, most smoke can be toxic and dangerous to varying degrees.
Black vs White Smoke:
Black smoke tends to occur when heavy fuels are being burned and you can see black fumes coming off vehicles that burn heavy fuel oils, for example.
However, they are often an indicator that synthetic and manmade materials are on fire – rubber or synthetic building materials are typical examples. Firefighters treat black smoke as an indicator of possible volatility within the fire.
White smoke, on the other hand, tends to indicate that the fire is creating either gas or water vapor and it can be an indicator that the fire has only just started burning or is in the process of going out.
It may also mean that light materials are on fire – think hay or fibers which will normally smoke with a white color.
