>Water burns very nicely in a magnesium fire, but not under ordinary
>circumstances.

As someone pointed out it doesn't actually burn as such; the burning
magnesium grabs oxygen from the water thus facilitating its own
combustion; and then the remaining hydrogen burns back to water if it
can find oxygen to do it with.  Recursively if the resulting water
gets back to the magnesium.

Yrs,
d

--
David Beierl -- dbeierl@attglobal.net