Mini PSA: the immiscibility of water is only PART of why you don’t want to dump water on a grease fire
The actual reason is that that hot, hot oil will flash the water into steam, causing the pot of burning oil to explode all over, spraying said burning oil. This is how it can “make it spread faster”
Specifically aerosolizing it, not just splashing it around, for anyone who’s unclear on what sort of “spray” is produced. It turns a big lump of burning oil where only some of it can get oxygen into a huge cloud of tiny oil particles that are each surrounded by oxygen, creating yet another additional explosion as suddenly a lot more of it is burning a whole lot faster.
Like it’s not just a bad idea that makes the fire bigger, it’s a catastrophically bad idea that turns the entire room its in into fire instantly.
Now technically there is an amount of water that can put out a small enough grease fire, but it’s on the order of hundreds of gallons hitting it all at once so unless someone has a bathtub sized emergency reservoir on a quick release directly above their stove, they’re not going to manage it with a glass or a pot or even a large bucket full of water. Especially since the actual solution is just “put a thing that won’t be on fire over it and it will stop.”
Mini PSA: the immiscibility of water is only PART of why you don’t want to dump water on a grease fire
The actual reason is that that hot, hot oil will flash the water into steam, causing the pot of burning oil to explode all over, spraying said burning oil. This is how it can “make it spread faster”
Specifically aerosolizing it, not just splashing it around, for anyone who’s unclear on what sort of “spray” is produced. It turns a big lump of burning oil where only some of it can get oxygen into a huge cloud of tiny oil particles that are each surrounded by oxygen, creating yet another additional explosion as suddenly a lot more of it is burning a whole lot faster.
Like it’s not just a bad idea that makes the fire bigger, it’s a catastrophically bad idea that turns the entire room its in into fire instantly.
Now technically there is an amount of water that can put out a small enough grease fire, but it’s on the order of hundreds of gallons hitting it all at once so unless someone has a bathtub sized emergency reservoir on a quick release directly above their stove, they’re not going to manage it with a glass or a pot or even a large bucket full of water. Especially since the actual solution is just “put a thing that won’t be on fire over it and it will stop.”