Spark
It begins as a spark.
Tiny, hot, and gone in a second unless something catches it.
Hold TheEmber
Every fire that lasted the night started as one spark. Scroll to keep this one alive.
Tinder
Then something catches.
Dry grass, birch bark, a scrap of paper. One sketch, one line of code. Small, but burning.
Kindling
Feed it small things first.
A big log smothers a new flame. It needs twigs, air and patience. This is where most fires die.
Roaring
Now it roars.
Everyone gathers around. It's warm, it's loud, and you can see it from across the field.
Embers
Then it glows quietly.
The flames drop but the heat stays. A good bed of embers can keep a fire alive all night.
20 °C at the heart
Up close
Every coal is a fire, waiting.
Keep scrolling to lean in.
Turn it up
1,100 °C. One scroll.
20degrees Celsius
68degrees Fahrenheit
Room temperature
Sunset
The light is going.
Scroll slowly. You're keeping this one alive.
0hours since sunset
900°C at the heart
Try it yourself
How long will your fire last?
Pick your wood and stack some logs. Softwood burns fast and bright. Hardwood burns slow and steady.
5hours of fire, roughly
23:00it burns down around
A rough guide. Log size, how dry the wood is and how much air gets in all change real burn times. Scroll fast to blow on it.
Take it apart
What's inside a flame?
Fire keepers
People who refused to let it go out.
1M yrs
Fire moves in
Ash and burnt bone deep in Wonderwerk Cave, South Africa, suggest early humans kept fires about a million years ago.
3300 BC
A fire kit on the ice
Ötzi, the iceman found in the Alps, carried tinder fungus and flint. He could start a fire wherever he stopped.
1826
A match, by accident
Chemist John Walker scraped a coated stick on his hearth and it burst into flame. The friction match was born.
1855
The safety match
Johan Edvard Lundström in Sweden patents a match that only lights on its own box.
1962
Still burning
A coal seam fire under Centralia, Pennsylvania, started in 1962. It's still burning underground today.
Tonight
Someone, somewhere
Right now someone is crouched over a few coals, blowing gently to get the fire going again.
Next
Your spark
The timeline isn't finished. Someone reading this adds the next card.
Three things
It needs three things to stay alive.
Heat, fuel and air. Take any one away and the fire goes out. Keeping an idea alive works the same way: time, energy and people.
Heat, fuel, air: burning
Fire colors
Why flames change color.
Hotter flames shift from red to orange to yellow-white. Add certain minerals and the color changes completely: copper burns green and potassium burns violet.
Dull red, the coolest flame
Keeping something alive isn't one big blaze. It's a few small embers you guard every night, until morning comes.
Spark lab
Catch a spark.
Drag anywhere and let go to throw a spark. Land it on tinder and it catches. Miss and it fizzles. Scroll fast to blow on every fire at once.
0sparks flying
0fires lit
0fizzled
Look outside tonight
Sunset tonight
Worked out from today's date and where you are. A good night to keep something burning.
0hours of darkness
0sunrise tomorrow
0%of the moon lit
0days to the longest night