Hi. Miscellaneous snippets from [theta] and I for a. What will hopefully be Kressie piece. One day.
[Autonomous Response]
Always light before sound. Light before heat.
Light, sound, heat, then, occasionally, shock waves.
Be that the strike of lightning, then the answering rumble of thunder. Or the spark, before a morsel lights aflame. The strained groaning of metal under too much weight, flashing white-got before carbon steel gives away.
Regardless.
It all starts with light.
The fastest traveling wavelengths known to man, radiation within and outside of humanity's sphere of visibility. The reason for life on our planet.
Barring water, of course. Light is often the first jump point.
The first cue, of something gone wrong.
Explosions were complicated and yet abruptly simple things, gas and pressure. Heat, climbing pressure, waves of gas with nowhere to expand but outwards.
Out, and out, an eventual dissipation. But first, light. Then sound. Then shockwave. And the longest, often most grueling thing. The aftermath.
Fire was much the same, in many ways.
A very simple process. Fuel. Oxygen. Heat. Often tied to explosions, but powerful in its own right. Consuming anything within its path, if allowed, within a world made primarily of perfect fuel.
For a sturdy, ancient, and constantly re-evolving aspect of the Plantae Kingdom, trees, more particularly wood, was a perfect fuel. Often more so than visually anticipated, bubbles of sap forming their own, miniature explosions in pops and snaps to the human ear.
If only sometimes.
Living wood was, of course, a less than optimal fuel source, but there are many ways for a tree to die. Even the food in which it consumes, if the mycelium system within the soil becomes contaminated, or if the environment experiences an excess of sunlight and very little water. Spread that across years, and years, and the unfortunate decisions of the government handling the land, and you get…
Perfect, lovely dead pines, simply waiting for two of three. Excess oxygen, and heat.
…
The sound a propane tank makes when it explodes is not a pleasant one. Be that up close or a mile away, the sound, heat, and release of excessively heated gas spells disaster upon disaster. The maximum psi a propane tank can handle ranges, but often, most tanks are stable at external pressures of up to 200 psi.
To reach and exceed that?
And much more, to release superheated propane gas into a situation already terse as is? Well. Humans don’t do well under pressure. Take a guess.
...
The smoke twisted across the sky from Pulga as if a morning greeting, that softened grey as you’d expect from a smaller wildfire.