FIRE! (C)1998 Alan M. Schwartz The fire triangle was hot syllabus at my public school. To kindle or douse fire know Fuel, Oxidant, and Heat. Compromise any of the three and fire ceases. Halon fire suppressants were discovered. Before any rabid Environmentalist yelled "OZONE HOLE!" Halon snuffed fires like a hammer mashed flies, without annoying fuel, oxidant, or heat. Fire is a free radical chain reaction spawning heat from energetic interplay of fuel and oxidant. Halons quench free radical chains. Behold the Fire Square - Fuel, Oxidant, Heat, Radical Chain Propagation. Triangles are rigid, squares flop over. It was obtuse jargon whether broached as Media sound bite or classroom pedagogy. Enter the Fire Tetrahedron! Four triangular facets hold four fire essences. Tetrahedra are rigid, pointy, and make lovely audiovisual demonstrations. Six edges remained empty. Hail essence five, Civil Service! Fire departments digest politics, publicity, corruption, and females with tenuous upper body strength (and civil rights discrimination lawyers). Recall B-School casebook models of obsolete inventory and failed enterprise being transformed into the cool cash of a fire insurance settlement. Fire is not merely passionless chemistry exploited by rapacious political leeches. Fire embraces society, petty criminal to exclusive country club patronized by corporate officers, rigged insurance bids to arson. Add "insurance" and you have it all, a proper Fire Tetrahedron! Fuel, oxidant, heat, radical chain propagation, arson, civil service, insurance. The four faces are science, politics, crime, and money. It's a Masters degree in sociology, easy! Example: Father Torquemada's embezzlement of parish receipts has surpassed the most creative bookkeeping. Accounts Receivable languishes, Accounts payable bulges, and cushy retirement is not in his future unless he greases Vatican palms abundantly. Father Torquemada, having magnanimously donated two-level grave sublets, discreetly contacts Guido Savonarolla for payback. Don Savonarolla, desirous of entering heaven, offers Imprudential Insurance a deal it cannot refuse: Exclusive fire coverage in California archdiocese. Everybody gets a cut from statewide collection plates. Fire Tetrahedron pillar One - insurance - is in place. Don Savonarolla phones Dr. Arrhenius Poswilly, calling in the favor of his NSF grant to trace air pollution from whale flatus. Shortly before Vatican audit of Father Torquemada's finances, Dr. Poswilly drives his sports utility vehicle to the Church of Gavrouche Incarnate. At 0200 hours. With 55 gallons of liquid oxygen in silvered dewars, and a paint pellet rifle. Face one of the Fire Tetrahedron - science - is satisfied! Fifty five gallons of liquid oxygen at 1.14 g/cm^3 vaporize into 165,000+ liters of gas, oxidant, Fire Tetrahedron pillar two. Pantries bursting with choir clothing, brocaded curtains floor to cathedral ceiling... are fuel, Fire Tetrahedron pillar three. Dr. Poswilly soaks fuel with oxidant and departs ASAP. Pure oxygen saturates all fabric. Dr. Poswilly loads a special gelatin paint pellet in the far distance. Carbon disulfide vapor ignites at 100 centigrade, where water boils. Yellow phosphorus spontaneously inflames in air. Dr. Poswilly takes aim and fires. A 30-caliber paintball loaded with yellow phosphorus dissolved in carbon disulfide arcs through a church window and splats on a curtained wall. The paintball shatters, liquid splashes, carbon disulfide vaporizes, yellow phosphorus inflames (heat, Fire Tetrahedron pillar four!), carbon disulfide ignites (free radical chain propagation, Fire Tetrahedron pillar five!), and the church burns faster than you can say "Golgotha." Stained glass windows of inestimable value explode in the heat. The Fire Department arrives (Fire Tetrahedron pillar six!) but can do nothing. The Church of Gavrouche Incarnate is a gutted shell, all its records reduced to cinders. Arson investigation immediately launches, trained dogs meticulously sniffing every square inch of surface for, what? Oxygen? The whole place glowed white hot. Imprudential Insurance surrenders $4.4 million in reimbursements, and petitions the California State Insurance board for a premium rate increase. Granted! The second face of the Fire Tetrahedron - politics - is satisfied! Father Torquemada contracts with Don Savonarolla's building unions to reconstruct the Church of Gavrouche Incarnate, with massive overtime and kickbacks. The third face of the Fire Tetrahedron - money - is satisfied! Where is the fourth and final face of the Fire Tetrahedron - crime - the closure? Mother Justice Janet Reno suffers a politically correct cow over the church firebombing, and Washington kicks in matching $4.4 million compensation. The Democratic Party enjoys a groundswell of campaign contributions from Father Torquemada's parish. It's a crime they could not do more for their generous benefactors. The Fire Tetrahedron has six edges (Fuel, Oxidant, Heat, Radical Chain Propagation, Insurance, Civil Service, Arson) and four faces (science, politics, crime, and money). Did you take notes? There will be a brief quiz next time.