My family loves candles and buys them constantly. On these candles they say to stop burning them at a certain point to prevent fires. They don’t care and burn it past that point. I always see these low candles and put them out because I don’t want a fire. How can I explain to my family in a way they will understand and stop lighting candles with less than an inch left?
In: Chemistry
It is *unattended* candles that pose a fire risk.
Your family might be comforted if a candle is placed on something large and ~~inflammable~~ non-flammable, like a plate.
Any candle will eventually burn all the wick and will go out.
The fire risk is will it fall or will it burn through its container.
edit: non-flammable, not inflammable
There are a lot of reasons.
1. The wax acts as a buffer between the flame and other things. Those other things being the glass container and whatever it is resting on or is near by. As the wax is burnt up and the flame gets lower, the flame gets closer to those things, heating them up and possibly causing damage or allowing the fire to spread.
2. Burning a candle for a long time (regardless of how much wax is left) is also dangerous as the wick can “mushroom” which increases the size of the flame and makes it unstable.
3. Once you get near the bottom of the wax, it can melt unevenly causing it to tilt.
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