Why Only Earth Has Fire

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To get fire, which exists only on Earth, it took billions of years of photosynthesis - which means fire can’t exist without life. And fire and life have been shaping each other ever since.
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References: docs.google.com/document/d/1u...

[@kyrerymmukk7446]

Uncle Iroh was right, fire really is the breath of life.

[@g2unes]

😂Lol

[@agxryt]

"and with fire, came disparity. Heat and cold. Life and death. Light and dark." Lordran is prehistory, confirmed

[@KoneSkirata]

Life is older than fire. That's going on the "obscure perspective-changing facts" list.

[@rstidman]

who would want to live in a world where you can't tell someone else to go die in a fire?

[@therobn]

They had to come to that conclusion for you? Man basically discovered fire

[@KoneSkirata]

@therobn The tens of thousands of animals that were vaporized within a thousand kilometer radius around the Yucatan peninsula, as well as the many millions more that were burned alive within a couple thousand kilometers by earth's mantle literally being ejected into space and raining down again in an apocalyptic hellfire of unprecedented proportions in the history of life, to not even mention the billions of plants meeting their demise as molten stone set ablaze entire continents, will be glad to hear that there was no such thing as fire, before mankind discovered it 🤡

[@avinashreji60]

@@therobn ? that's not true

[@nottelling7438]

​@@therobnWe didn't start the fire. Earlier living things did.

[@Artful_Synthesis]

I don't give PBS enough credit for the knowledge, inspiration and entertainment they have provided to me my entire life. The countless people who have and continued to work to build PBS into the most reliable source of educational entertainment have my thanks.

[@themanhimself3]

I'm glad our taxes are doing something cool.

[@GuyWithAnAmazingHat]

It makes so much more sense now why classical elements consider fire an element. I wonder what kind of such "elements" exist out in the universe that we don't even know exist.

[@Uhshawdude]

The fact that water, fire and life are so interconnected and reliant upon each other to exist on this planet feels poetic in a way. Water creates life, life creates fire, fire consumes life, water douses fire, life is reborn from the ashes of the old.

[@InquisitorBoomBoom]

I appreciate Terra even more

[@rgw5991]

awesome!

[@sntslilhlpr6601]

I was thinking that but chemically. At the end of the day it's just moving the same things back and forth.

[@MissMarilynDarling]

its like an unending game of rock paper scissors

[@benwagner5089]

Puts a whole new spin on "Everything changed when the fire nation attacked."

[@mst4309]

I think the societal misconceptions with what fire actually is is very overlooked, and what it and plasma and glowing-hot liquid metals are should be more clearly covered in school

[@OrdinaryCritic]

Agreed. This is very important.

[@joser9237]

Just to be clear, fire isn't a type of plasma. It *can* have plasma if it were hot enough to ionize atoms and be electrically conductive. Most candles and wood fires are not hot enough to create plasma. The common understanding is that fire is hot glowing gas, much like hot metals glow when sufficiently heated.

[@julianshepherd2038]

Children and fire. What could go wrong.

[@garettdoornwaard4822]

I think they are in Canada because i immediately chuckled at the headline and mockingly thought "maybe because were the ones with oxygen...like some public school stuff?"😂

[@solalflechelles1216]

@@garettdoornwaard4822 Keep chuckling. There are plenty of planets with oxygen. What they don't have is both oxygen and fuel, because they lack a cycle by which both can be continually produced, that is, life.

[@chriskirby1879]

As a degreed and professional forester. Thank you for this! I wish more people would fully understand this!

[@Punishedgentile]

Degreed only means you memorized enough things to pass the final at the end of the year. As someone who works in chemicals, I know this idea of fire needing organic matter to burn is simply not true

[@manicangel7796]

As a degreed person, one would believe you would not write a fragmented sentence.

[@user-ds8rj2vc4v]

@@Punishedgentile Not necessarily organic, no, but surely would have to compose of the same elements (in same variation) to release (x)CO2 & (x)H2O? But yeah, as a Biologist - I hate the presentation here personally. It makes a lot of presumptions from the get-go, including that only our planet can even support life in the first place.

[@videogamesarecool9280]

@@user-ds8rj2vc4vthey did specify 'know planets' and earth is the only planet we currently know of that provably has life

[@user-ds8rj2vc4v]

@@videogamesarecool9280 It's more that they said; "It isn't the only watery planet in the universe, but it is the only fiery planet" Which doesn't mention about "known planets" just outright stated it's the only one. So far, we've been to like two planets. Including our own. So it's a bit of a bold statement to make.

[@DeuxisWasTaken]

This is a great point. Fire needs reactive oxidiser and reactive fuel. (Pedantic nitpick: despite the name oxygen is not the only nor the most powerful oxidiser.) The problem is that reactive things, well, react and so they are never naturally available in large not yet reacted quantities. Life is the exception in that it reverses that process, it uses energy to turn less reactive compounds into more reactive ones (endothermic chemical reactions) so that it can use them as building blocks or react them back together to get the stored energy back. Photosynthesis is a pump that takes energy from the Sun's light to perform these reactions, transforming that light energy into usable chemical energy. When aerobic life burns sugar with oxygen to use that energy, the term "burns" is pretty literal. As a side effect, the surplus oxygen and unburnt fuel can result in plain old fire. Although, it might be possible for fire to exist without life. There are endothermic reactions that can occur due to heat without any organic help, so there might be planets where extreme solar radiation or internal heat affect naturally occurring compounds and result in endothermic reactions that produce oxidiser+fuel, which then burn back together, completing a cycle.

[@TheWemmick]

Fantastic comment. I was hoping someone with chemistry knowledge would step in. "it might be possible for fire to exist without life" Yeah, I was wondering. My thinking was that a planet with an eccentric orbit might provide suitable conditions. If you had an endothermic reaction storing up energy during the hot period of the orbit, it could burn off when the planet travels farther from its star.

[@willmendoza8498]

Sometimes a video tells me stuff I already knew, but recontextualizes it in a way that makes it feel brand new. This is one such video.

[@Neuvost]

knowledge AND wisdom :D

[@Janziepoo]

I recognize your profile picture but can't remember where I've seen it! @willmendoza8498

[@FoulWeatherFriend385]

Another groundbreaking fact from this video: PBS is now being sponsored by a software company who’s main selling point is that it gives people access to porn in states where its blocked. Lol

[@technopoptart]

pretty much, yeah.

[@Hi_Im_Akward]

I've always wondered how grasslands could be the dominant biome for an area without it getting taken over by trees. This makes so much sense. I already kind of knew this, I live in an area where land burning is a seasonal phenomenon land owners do (its in a controlled setting) but I really didn't know why. And I had no clue this was an evolved adaptation to benefit the grass. Evolution is crazy and I feel like we as laymen humans forget about the plants but they do some cool stuff.

[@LaineyBug2020]

I grew up in Kansas where they do the same thing! Nothing quite like the smell of the pastures burning!

[@skadoodle8503]

the world is truly an interesting place, I think we just fail to see it because we are pre occupied by other things such as socmeds, work, studies etc.

[@giraffelord94]

The fact that always blows my mind is how long it took for grass to even show up. Like the most basic kind of plant you could imagine, a leaf in the ground, only evolved around 55 million years ago. Yes there were grass-like plants back then, but grass itself, like the kind you see every day, didn't show up until so recently.

[@josem1419]

@@giraffelord94 yeah, grass (of any kind) is so ubiquitous I can't imagine a world without it

[@The_Opinion_of_Matt]

You should look up what happened to Yellowstone National Park after wolves were reintroduced. It is rather amazing.

[@jaiclary8423]

The older I get, the less common it is to come across something that truly teaches me something new. This video accomplished it. Thank you.

[@lonjohnson5161]

I really liked this one. It is obvious in retrospect that you can't have fire without life or some other ongoing process, given that chemicals that can vigorously react (burn) on geological time will find each other and react until something is completely consumed (the rusting of the Earth's crust is evidence of that); however, until someone mentions it, you don't really think about it. In other words, I liked this episode because it made me look at what I thought I knew differently.

[@timhogan9282]

I haven't thought about this before. Goes to show you you never stop learning

[@glennjpanting2081]

Some people do ..... but that's only because they choose to be ignorant. Poor dumb bastards. 😞

[@360.Tapestry]

where there's life... there's fire

[@jelly.212]

@@360.Tapestry define life. Because some planets also have life.

[@thechicken1477]

​@@jelly.212 Name one

[@AlanTheBeast100]

Regrettably I meet people daily who proved they stop learning. A lot. And young. Sad.

[@PendragonDaGreat]

Earth: Creates Giant Insects: Also Earth: Creates fire to deal with said giant insects.

[@sozetsukokai9327]

the only sensible action

[@jkatttt1699]

This is something we are missing in modern forest management that has been a contributing factor to the intense wildfire burns we are seeing!!! It's just one piece of the puzzle of course, but the importance of regenerative burning cannot be overstated!

[@thomaskrug4328]

True enough. Smokey the Bear notwithstanding, it turns out we can't prevent forest fires, only postpone them. Then when they do finally happen, the damage is pretty severe.

[@toodlesX14]

It may not be very scientific, but I've always liked thinking of fire as an abstract form of life. So it's super interesting to learn that fire wasn't always around, and needed a specific set of circumstances to "evolve" so to speak. Really neat episode, I learned a lot!

[@ambergris5705]

I love this idea too. Someone should write something about that!

[@Nartinan]

Yes, I think so too. Fire is at least in the same category as life, both are in a sense a reaction zone. Fuel goes in, waste comes out, the system sustains itself and seeks more fuel until it "dies"

[@cardboardboxification]

fire is simple electromagnetic at the atomic structure , absolutely no electromagnetic physics on earth create cells , much less life

[@HallucigeniaIV]

I have a vague memory of the series of Avatar (the OG one with the element-benders) Discussing fire as an "alive" element, or even the element of life, as it is the only element that grows and needs care to exist. it always stuck with me and I think fire is a beautiful counterpart to our usual understanding of life!

[@TheSaneHatter]

Robert de Niro, as a fire-department investigator, has a monologue to that effect in the movie, "Backdraft."

[@AceofHearth]

I don't know why but watching this video makes me long to see the days before I ever existed. Not to experience or go through it, but just to observe it and just wonder and wander more.

[@davidgantenbein9362]

I always wonder when we will go and just do super realistic simulations of all these time periods … to entertain, educate and also study possibilities. Maybe one day we can take a simulated walk through those times.

[@LuisSierra42]

This just proves that there are far more things that we would never know or understand than the things we do

[@Dean_stoonts]

That’s stupid

[@thelionoob]

that has been one of my deepest desires since I was a child. Be able to go to any period in time before human history as an observer, to gaze upon what we have never been able to.

[@sp5072]

Must’ve missed the part about the fire tornadoes

[@paradox7358]

Those fire storms of the Carboniferous would have been a terrifying sight to behold.

[@mikeoxmall69420]

Ah yes, the Carboniferous When everywhere was Australia

[@GalvyTheTom]

@@mikeoxmall69420If Australia was predominantly rainforest instead of desert

[@ratre7349]

But also terrifyingly beautifull.

[@TheRogueX]

You can ask German and Japanese survivors of World War II, they can give you an idea of what it would have been like. Specifically, people who lived in Dresden and Tokyo.

[@fabianmckenna8197]

​@@TheRogueX You mean the German and Japanese invaders who were quite happy to destroy everything in their path before finally refusing to surrender until their countries were bombed into submission.........

[@tylerwheeling3060]

This is lowkey an anthropologist answer to religious fire and early religions too. Fire made humanity and culture as it is today from the very start. Its importance is woven into most mythologies, for better and for worse.

[@jaimequinones1109]

This is one of y'all's best videos of all time imo. Wow

[@hypocriticalcritic6915]

"Damn, this planet is fire"

[@fduranthesee]

no cap, this planet is straight-up bussin'

[@SilverScarletSpider]

2:29 i like it when the hosts enjoy the scripts that they write. gives everyone a bit more voice. Wood is rarer in this universe than Diamond, because only Earth has wood.

[@LXAsx457]

I’ve watched a lot of these PBS Eons videos, and this has got to be one of the most interesting ones yet. Well done 👏 👏 👏

[@geirtwo]

"Fire can't exist without life" 🤯 Wow, that is something to think about. I have had thoughts about fire as a form of life recently, but I have never though fire is dependent on life. It is like we could place fire somewhere in the phylogenetic tree! Heraclitus is the best!

[@TheRogueX]

Fire isn't dependent on life.

[@ragnkja]

Without life, the fuel and oxidiser would just react with each other and get used up. The thing that’s unique about Earth is that they get replenished, and that requires life.

[@cowboybeebop3451]

The sun is a nuclear fire, it's not really an explosion as it is constant so it's a fire ​@@ragnkja

[@ragnkja]

@@cowboybeebop3451 But it’s not a fire, it’s a nuclear chain reaction.

[@cowboybeebop3451]

@@ragnkja but isn't a fire just a sustained reaction though? It's just the combustion of something like wood but it's still functions in the same way just not using oxygen. I mean I could be wrong but when I think of the sun I think fire and light

[@Zimisce85]

I would love to see an episode about lichens: their evolution, when the symbiont relation may have appeared, if they have made genetic studies and if they have learned something from them. I always had the idea that lichens have much to say about the emergence of life on land.

[@LeoDomitrix]

Just seconding (or fiftieth-ing) the lichens. They're fascinating.

[@thelionoob]

agreed

[@one_field]

Upvote! This would be a great episode.

[@jwarfield1623]

I'm here for that too. I'd love that

[@Pk_Nangz]

I’m in school for natural resources and they’re one of my favourite things to learn about. They are pretty much architects of nature as they break down rock from barren stony landscapes to produce soil which leads to forests, this process is known as ecological succession and it’s very interesting.

[@goatsplitter]

This makes me wonder what other kind of things are possible on other planets. If fire is unique to our earth like conditions, what about other things? The universe is constantly amazing.

[@oriontigley5089]

Oil and coal is also probably fairly unique to Earth, since they largely formed from our specific mass extinction events. It's very possible that, if intelligent life does exist out there, their Industrial Revolution would look very different or may not happen at all

[@krishadyn5211]

The most amazing basic object that could be grasped might be ice fragments from high pressure planets. As ice is compressed, it becomes incredibly hard, like stone. Like cold crystal. It can be set into lava and not melt. But if you took these cold diamonds out of their high pressure atmosphere, they'd melt (I think).

[@goatsplitter]

@@oriontigley5089 yeah you're so right! I read somewhere that as we keep depleting our fossil fuel reserves, we're making it so a hypothetical intelligent life down the line, or future humans, would never be able to industrialize. Wild!!

[@Rebar77_real]

Like how there are so many different thermite reactions here, then there's Uranium!

[@jaredf6205]

For fire, you need a chemical to accept electrons and a chemical to give electrons. Oxygen, chlorine and fluorine give electrons really well and you can have fires involving those, I don’t think most other elements are as reactive in that way. There are loads of chemicals that can give electrons to them, fuels. But there’s not really anything weird and new out there as far as flashy reactions like that like you are thinking. Not going to come across some new phenomena.

[@ggarpett8063]

This was miles more interesting of a video than I thought it’d be

[@TMtheScratcher]

Grasslands are so underrated. Now I see them in a completely different light, thanks!

[@aplaceinthestars3207]

Gosh, I feel like my mental concept of fire is stuck in the medieval era! The fact that both decomposing organisms AND fire didn't exist since the dawn of life and came about far later just blows my mind!

[@borovice1731]

Wow. This episode explained one of the longest interconnected chain of events ever.

[@MilonMing]

I love this. Not only is it interesting for children to learn about, it appealed to me and I'm 70!! Puts a whole new spin on fire; something we take for granted on our planet.

[@harrisonmoore3841]

This makes me wonder about life out there in space. Like, if their species couldn't invent fire, what could they do instead?

[@fugithegreat]

Wow, I'd never considered the fact that fire wouldn't exist without something carbon-based to burn. Thanks for expanding my horizons and helping me to reframe my understanding!

[@luel23]

There are some inorganic substances that can burn, too. Sulfur for example would yield you a little blue fire when ignited. Keeping in mind that accumulations of sulfur usually build up at vulcanic areas, this could easily happen. It's more the oxygen in the atmosphere that enables the formation of fires, since you have to have an oxidizing agent to burn stuff ^^

[@ecurewitz]

And an oxygen rich atmosphere rich

[@sntslilhlpr6601]

Same here. Turns out rocks don't burn lol.

[@cardboardboxification]

fire has nothing to do with carbon, it's electromagnetic releasing electromagnetic energy in the spectrum of light and inferred , just consider it a very slow atomic bomb

[@michaelblankenau6598]

I don't think rocket fuel is carbon based , but it definitely creates a powerful fire .

[@davidboyle1902]

This is one of your best presentations. Never actually thought about fire as discussed here. Very informative. Thx.

[@blazefireecology]

may be biased, but this is one of the best eons videos yet! thanks for sharing the important and ancient relationship of life on earth with fire!

[@gillosborne9516]

Wow. What an episode. I’m mid sixties. Why did I not know this?

[@raphlvlogs271]

plants that are fire resistant are usually also more tolerant to poor nutrient deficient soils as well

[@thomasfalkenberg8549]

Considering Fire's role in human societies, this might also be a small step towards the Fermi Paradox

[@Ethan-cz8xq]

Possibly. So for intelligent life to have access to fire, they'd need to both evolve on land and have oxygen be produced by a large amount of autotrophs

[@geralferald]

@@Ethan-cz8xqfire isn’t necessary to technologically debelop

[@IceSpoon]

@@geralferald You can't have a Kardashev-2 civilisation without barbecues.

[@oriontigley5089]

​@@geralferaldIt's not strictly neccessary, no, but it is extremely helpful.

[@salemsaberhagan]

​@@geralferaldit's necessary to externalise a part of the digestive process as we understand it, which both enables acquisition of biological energy through food & frees it up for complex & expensive mental processes which are necessary for technological development. No cooking means no extra energy for thinking up fancy things to do with lasers. Brains are expensive electrical devices.

[@Simbabbad]

This was an original and interesting angle! Great job.

[@prapanthebachelorette6803]

I’ve been wondering my whole life why areas looking so dry and dead like this managed to sustain so many lives! Thanks Eons 😊🎉

[@kathleencross-cj1xd]

Of course! Rocks can't burn. Only things that have lived can burn. It makes so much sense. Why didn't I think of that. I love your vids. I love learning this stuff. Thanks.

[@leewagner4474]

Magnesium burns.

[@maxgosselin62]

​@@leewagner4474yeah, so do a lot of compounds that can exist without living organisms (even if they are much more common in their presence). I get the feeling that fire isn't necessarily ABSENT in the rest of the universe, just A LOT less common

[@austin4855]

@@leewagner4474 True, but magnesium is pretty rare in a pure metallic form on earth or anywhere else that we know of. And it oxidizes and that layer actually protects it from further oxygen exposure. If you had oxygen, metallic magnesium, and some kind of ignition source like a current, it could happen, but it's probably very rare.

[@mkhanman12345]

I am going to learn now

[@TG_Flatline]

What about coal? (Genuinely asking)

[@AifDaimon]

New criteria in the search for earth-like exoplanets: signs of fire.. Edit - I correctly guessed Dimetrodon

[@aidanwewilin]

I didn’t expect this video to heighten my appreciation for fire and grass to this height.

[@ItsCaramelToffee]

Loving the new trivia ending to the videos!

[@IRosamelia]

I can't believe I'm learning this in my mid-forties. This should be middle school basic science knowledge 🤔

[@maisiesummers42]

The opening bit about the sun being mostly hydrogen reminded me of this quote: "Several billion trillion tons of superhot exploding hydrogen nuclei rose slowly above the horizon and managed to look small, cold and slightly damp.” -Douglas Adams, Life, The Universe and Everything.

[@noahdove4969]

Oh my! Kelly, everytime you manage how to amaze me. Thank you all so much guys at EONS!

[@irrelevant2235]

Fire is a chemical reaction and life is a chemical reaction.

[@RabidJohn]

Fire simply needs fuel and oxygen, so as soon as there was a sufficient concentration in the atmosphere, it was a thing. I was a coal miner. Seams commonly have very thin 'soot' bands (actually crushed charcoal) in them where the forests burnt around 350M years ago. Unsurprising that it goes back much further.

[@jamesgeorge4874]

You forgot heat.

[@RabidJohn]

@@jamesgeorge4874 No, I didn't. Fire needs an ignition source such as lightning. It doesn't need heat: it produces heat. Also, as a coal miner I know spontaneous combustion is a real and dangerous thing. Coal will oxidise without burning, but the reaction still produces heat. Limited airflow may not be sufficient to dissipate the heat and then you get the carbon dioxide reduction reaction that produces carbon monoxide. All with no flame...

[@TheRogueX]

Fire needs fuel and an oxidizer. Oxygen isn't the only oxidizer.

[@geekyprojects1353]

Nowadays iron contained in vehicles still absorbs oxygen. We call the product of this process "a beater car".

[@DangerB0ne]

Perhaps in time this process can be preserved as a hooptie-ite.

[@KangwithoutaKangdom]

​@@DangerB0ne😂😂😂

[@aircraftcarrierwo-class]

@@DangerB0ne As you can see this rock layer contains a high concentration of jalopicite...

[@TragoudistrosMPH]

Such pure geekery! 🥲

[@pinrod1]

Weight reduction bro

[@Kat-mh1ol]

Thanks for such a great video. Love the idea that fire replenishes and nourishes life, especially at this cold time of year. It’s so interesting what fire does in our ecosystems.

[@PikaTigerlilypika]

But then the fire planet attacked.

[@bretfisher7286]

😂

[@emidowdarrow]

Pretty cool. Makes sense why more ancient traditions view fire as life-giving.

[@grokeffer6226]

I'd not really thought about this before. This is truly amazing. 🔥

[@DaydreamerWonderland]

This episode SLAPPED! I learned so much in 12mins it’s an absolute masterpiece, congrats to the writing!

[@rjb227s]

Great episode, but you really phoned it in on the closing statement. It reminded me of an elementary school book report:-)..

[@godofthisshit]

I think these are the type of things we should think of when answering questions like “could the non avian dinosaurs survive today” or any long ago population. Grasslands wasn’t even common 65 million years ago.

[@SuspiciousOwlbear]

Well darn, I thought we only had fire because of Prometheus.

[@GalvyTheTom]

What a plagiarizer

[@davidgantenbein9362]

Technically Prometheus from mythology only gave fire to humans, he didn’t invent or create it. In fact, he stole fire from the gods and gave it to humans.

[@SavannahBurris]

Pretty neat! I hadn’t ever really thought about this even though in hindsight, it seems very logical and obvious. Reminds me a lot of Avatar: The Last Airbender and how Firebending is actually the element of life - not destruction. Without controlled burnings of grasslands and the death of old, decaying plants, new life would never have the chance to flourish.

[@LEDewey_MD]

Great episode! The story of how our atmosphere became partly oxygen is a fascinating story, requiring research from many fields, including geology, meteorology, paleontology, and biology. An absolutely great book that covers all of these is "Oxygen: the Molecule that Made the World", by Dr. Nick Lane, (professor of evolutionary biochemistry at University College London, director of UCL's Centre for Life's Origins and Evolution ....in fact, I highly recommend ALL of his books.) It is an incredibly thorough and engaging read and remarkably still up to date, even though it was published in 2002. :)

[@anthonyfrench3169]

Even today we use fire to reseed the biosphere. Some examples that are at home for me is at Oak Openings in Toledo OH. It's an Oak Savanah and also where I currently live in Yamaguchi Japan. Akiyoshidai, a Karst plateau, both places use fire as a means to promote healthy growth.

[@mattfirestone1]

What about chlorate reactions like in an oxygen candle? Isn't it possible to have combustion with the absence of Oxygen? Other types of combustion exist as well, like fluorine. Also magnesium/teflon/biton compositions burn without oxygen. Other halogens, such as bromine and iodine, can also act as oxidizing agents.

[@DeRien8]

Or when the alkali metals oxidize vigorously in water or air. Or when hydrogen and oxygen explode to make water? I'm not sure if there would be enough of those reactive species hanging around separately on early Earth for any significant "fires" though.

[@nottelling7438]

The reactions discussed in the video (oxygen + organic fuel) are definitely fire, but I neither natural language evolution nor, I suspect, the wide array of possible chemical reactions particularly lend themselves to drawing a sharp line to distinguish fire from not fire without any ambiguous or counterintuitive results.

[@mattfirestone1]

@@DeRien8 The title of the video is "why only earth has fire". My point is that there are many combustible compositions and an unfathomable number of planets so it is incredibly likely that a) there is fire on other planets and b) they aren't necessarily burning oxygen.

[@TheRogueX]

It is absolutely possible. This video is rather misleading. Hydrocarbons can exist without life. Oxygen isn't the only oxidizer (and not even the most powerful one). From there all you need is energy to begin the reaction.

[@mattfirestone1]

That's also my understanding. Fire most likely exists in lots of places. @@TheRogueX

[@beansnrice321]

In the Age of Ancients the world was unformed, shrouded by fog. A land of gray crags, Archtrees and Everlasting Dragons. But then there was Fire and with fire came disparity. Heat and cold, life and death, and of course, light and dark. Then from the dark, They came, and found the Souls of Lords within the flame.

[@joshuaguting7952]

This was the most beautiful video ever that came from this channel.

[@Fantasygod930]

I kind of knew fire had a archeological record But it was only up to humans discovering and using fire Maybe a bit of the dinosaur's extinction But damn I did not know if first appeared when life appeared or when plants appeared That's insane This channel always has many surprises instored

[@TheRogueX]

Fire has existed for way longer than Earth has. This video is extremely misleading.

[@MsZeeZed]

Fire needs an Oxidiser, it doesn’t have to be dioxygen, its just the easiest component and makes fire so common, here on Earth. Fire can exist without life, it would just be much rarer in the absence of life, not completely absent.

[@sydhenderson6753]

Since volcanoes emit sulfur, that may have fueled Earth's first fires, although not wildfires.

[@ragnkja]

The thing that life provides is the ability to reverse energy-releasing chemical reactions. So without life, burned-up things stay burned-up forever.

[@8SnowBalls8]

"Nucular" --- I died ☠

[@troymcguffey8801]

Thank you very much for this video. I often wondered on other planets if there were other natural processes that happened that couldn't happen here. Maybe like fog that was made out of acid or different types of natural phenomenon that we simply just couldn't imagine and I don't mean like raining glass or anything like that

[@owensanfordstuff]

Damn, just opened KZbin and new video

[@sarathrathnayake1574]

same for me too

[@paraceratherium255]

It’s 3:00 am tho

[@owensanfordstuff]

@@paraceratherium255 different time zones

[@paraceratherium255]

@@owensanfordstuff that’s not what I was saying. I am just sleep deprived and should be asleep.

[@owensanfordstuff]

@@paraceratherium255 yeah I didn't get that from your first comment 😂

[@badmonkey244]

You did it again: the title is enough to make me drop everything I'm doing cause now I HAVE to know 😅

[@AlecMajerison]

The host seems so confident in their knowledge. They must be an eminent scientist.

[@THE-X-Force]

I love learning. Thank you everyone at PBS. ☮

[@LukeBunyip]

Given I live on a continent synonymous with fire, the lack of mention of the Eucalyptus family of flowering plants is bemusing.

[@floopyboo]

This

[@julesmasseffectmusic]

Well our seasons are under water, on fire ,drought and magpie mating season.

[@morenauer]

Earth not only has fire, but also wind. Mainly in September ♬

[@ogbored]

😂

[@KangwithoutaKangdom]

Facts 😂

[@gurusage]

Excellent video. The only thing I would have said differently is "Earth is the only planet in our solar system that has fire." We don't know if any of the exoplanets (in other star systems) throughout the universe have fire.

[@KingsleyIII]

This episode is straight fire.

[@karlmark9967]

I've always wondered how a planet with so much oxygen back then never got it self set on fire. It really was on fire. This topic is Lit.

[@lauroralei]

I often think of fire poetically as sunlight, trapped within plants, to be re-released into the Universe again anywhere from months to millions of years later

[@bretfisher7286]

This is quite fascinating. I'm not exactly a scientist (which is a big reason I'm here-- to learn), but I'd actually never thought of this.

[@AardBewoner]

This was so interesting, made me think of fire in a different way. I especially loved the analysis of the grassland biome, this is a useful vid for the NoLawns community. This made me wonder about the evolution of other biomes and plant communities. Cloud forests? Alpine grasslands? Temperate rainforests? Steppe?

[@ntamsma]

Never would have realized this. Love the show!

[@knabe9837]

This is my new favourite eons video!

[@davidcooke8005]

0:40 Nukular Fusion is my favorite kind of music.

[@ApprendreSansNecessite]

This intro is missing Lindsey Nikole's "THAT WE KNOW OF" XD

[@LolUGotBusted]

It is missing Lindsey Nikoles "that we know of" THAT WE KNOW OF*

[@jjptech]

Can you continue this video by talking about trees that only spread seed when submited to fire?

[@harveytheparaglidingchaser7039]

That was interesting. Great pub quiz question

[@earthjustice01]

And without water there would be no plate tectonics. Water from the oceans gets pulled down during subduction, mixes with oceanic crust, and this subducted rock turns to liquid magma after millions of years spent being pulled down into the mantle. The magma rises up through fissures to the surface where it erupts as volcanoes.

[@Fiery25123]

Beautifully written. I would add an addendum to say Earth is the only planet with Fire we've discovered so far, however. Much as I would personally ascribe Fire to the stars as well, that's neither here nor there. We owe a lot to Fire, and I wish this went more in-depth about it.

[@krishadyn5211]

If fire is just a hot gas that glows, that broadens it a bit.

[@tOGGLEwAFFLES]

So is it not actually fire if a different oxidizer causes something to combust?

[@KangwithoutaKangdom]

Excellent question

[@sydhenderson6753]

@@KangwithoutaKangdom Still fire.

[@Goro_Maj1ma]

​@@sydhenderson6753Nope! At least not by this videos logic.

[@monticore1626]

In Australia the eucalyptus trees have oil in their leaves, not only is it toxic but it also makes them highly flammable. Many species have stringy bark which hangs down from the branches and is essentially ideal kindling. The trees go to all this effort to be flammable as a reproductive strategy as many species have seed pods that are highly resistant to fire but also are activated by fire

[@lily8122]

This is so fascinating! I love PBS.

[@Osterbaum]

An overview of the evolution of plants would be a useful episode.

[@WAMTAT]

That would need to be several episodes. Plants are ... complex

[@j__r0d]

man, this episode is 🔥 (jokes aside...I now understand why it's called the CARBONiferous period!)

[@greensteve9307]

Great vid! I've never thought of that.

[@ZombieLicorice]

I understand why the title is the way it is, but a more accurate statement would be "why combustion is common on earth and rare on most planets"

[@planetJane]

This video was great and very educational as usual, however, I think the wildest thing I learned here is that PBS Eons is apparently filmed in Montana.

[@markmuller7962]

I had no idea some plants had such a relationship with fire. Amazing

[@hera7884]

And Pandoras Box still ravages humanity for their role in stealing Fire from the Gods. She only opened that box because of Hera, you know.

[@erictaylor5462]

You can have fire on planets or moons if they have a flammable atmosphere such as methane (Titan) or hydrogen. On Earth we put a bunch of stuff (fuel) in one place and the oxidizer comes from the air. In a place like Titan you put a bunch of oxidizer in one place and the fuel comes from the air.

[@Muggashyte]

This might be the only channel with all positive comments. I had comments, but all the others are so much better… fantastic!