Can fire be frozen?
When a log of wood burns, what do the orange tongues of flame actually consist of? If it’s oxidizing particles of wood rising off the log, couldn’t they be frozen in place if the temperature drops quickly enough?
I’m no chemist, but my guess is that the flame is a brew of oxidizing stuff, the majority of it probably being methane. BTW, that’s how spectroscopy works - chemists burn stuff and look at the spectrum given off. Different chemicals have different signatures. A burning log would give off all sorts of stuff, depending of the kind of soil it’s tree grew in, the climate, how long the log cured, how many parasites (living and dead) it contained, etc.
Now some of that stuff will flash-freeze, some won’t. Of course, as soon as you cool it off sufficiently, it stops oxidizing, hence it stops being fire. It then just becomes a nasty looking slush…
The colors of the flame are an indication of the activity that is occurring. If you flash-froze the whole area surounding the flame with some sort of science fiction device, you might be able to capture various chemicals and compounds that were in mid-change. However, there would no longer be an ongoing chemical activity, the heat associated with that activity would no longer be interacting with atmospheric pressure to keep the flame upright, and all the compounds would fall to earth.
The flame is not merely the compounds that are burning, but it is also the creation of light by the chemical process. Freeze it and the activity stops and the light disappears.
Tom~