At 23:33 5/14/99 -0400, Roger&Zoe Ann Banker wrote:
>  Magnesium contains its own oxygen, so once it gets started it
>will burn from the inside, and is very difficult to deal with.  My previous

Umm...not quite.  It's simply a metal.  But it burns so hot that it will
dissociate water into H + 2O, and CO2 into CO (which burns) and
O.  Throwing water on a metal fire as well as being useless, probably
flashes first into steam which is liable to throw globs of burning molten
metal around.  Burying the whole thing in sand should put it out, which it
wouldn't if God forbid it actually *did* have a built-in oxidizer.

david
David Beierl - dbeierl@ibm.net