I have not heard any accident about What Happens If Petroleum Jelly Catches Fire? The answer is: It can’t pick fire, don’t worry about it! Vaseline Jelly is not flammable when used and stored as intended.
Vaseline Jelly may release flammable vapors when heated at exceptionally high temperatures of more than 400 degrees Fahrenheit. This isn’t going to happen organically, not even in the summer.
What Happens If Petroleum Jelly Catches Fire?
Vaseline is one of the most used home goods, yet few people understand what it is, where it originates from, or even if it poses a fire risk. Vaseline doesn’t burn easily. Despite being formed of petroleum, which has high flammability, it is generally difficult to ignite.
Although it is uncommon, that does not guarantee that it will never catch fire. Let’s examine Vaseline and its fire risks in more detail. What you need to learn about Vaseline is this.
What Is Vaseline?
Petroleum jelly, commonly known as petrolatum, white petrolatum, multi-hydrocarbon, or soft paraffin, is used in Vaseline. It is merely a mixture of hydrocarbons generated from petroleum that have long chains (more than 25 carbon atoms per chain).
Vaseline is a well-known brand established in America in 1870 and is frequently used to refer to petroleum jelly items. It is a fundamental component of medicine cabinets worldwide and is frequently used to treat conditions for which it makes no specific claims. The FDA has authorized its over-the-counter sales in the US for skin care and protection purposes.
What Was Vaseline Originally Made For?
Vaseline was initially marketed as a product to aid in the recovery of skin that had been burned or injured back in 1859. This was partially due to Robert Cheeseborough’s place of employment at Titusville, Pennsylvania, where Vaseline was created.
Since the area is an oil town, employees had been using rod wax, a less refined petroleum jelly that was conveniently a byproduct of the drilling process, for this purpose. By observing this procedure in action, Cheesborough set out to refine and purify the petroleum jelly to provide a greater level of sanitation.
He presented a patent application for his creation in 1865 under the name Vaseline Healing Jelly, which is still available today in the same form.
Is Vaseline Flammable?
It is not believed that Vaseline is flammable. It will burn, but a hotter environment is required to ignite. This is frequently more difficult to do than it might seem, though, because it only burns when it is liquid.
No, petroleum jelly doesn’t burn until it reaches a temperature of about 160 degrees Fahrenheit because of the lengthy hydrocarbons that are included in it. Additionally, solid jelly needs to melt before burning; it does not burn well when solid.
This implies that even while petroleum jelly will burn, it is not classified as a flammable material. It is good news if you want to apply it on your face before sitting next to a bonfire (as many people do during winter camping trips).
Is Vaseline Flammable With Oxygen?
Vaseline is not often flammable, but there is one exception to this rule. Vaseline is exposed to high oxygen levels at that point. Naturally, oxygen is necessary for igniting any fire, and since Vaseline has a nearly flammable ignition temperature, an increase in oxygen significantly lowers this temperature.
If enough oxygen is available, the Vaseline may react violently even without a spark or heat source.
When Using Oxygen, Can You Put Vaseline In Your Nose?
You should never use Vaseline or other petroleum jelly-based products like Vick’s or Chapstick when using oxygen equipment due to the possibility of a strong reaction. There is enough good in this area that a recent article published in PubMed concluded that while utilizing oxygen, only oil-in-water or water-based lotions should be used if the skin needs to be moisturized or lubricated.
Can Vaseline Be Used To Treat Burns?
Yes. Vaseline can be a chemically neutral barrier between the air and burned flesh. This aids in stopping additional oxidation of the injured skin and should hasten its healing. Vaseline can provide this advantage if you apply it to a mild burn twice daily.
It is best to confer with a medical expert about your care plan if you have a more serious burn. Vaseline shouldn’t hurt you, but it’s always better to be cautious than sorry, so talk to your doctor before doing anything.
Vaseline has been hailed as a wonderful treatment because it is affordable, efficient, fully non-invasive, and free of side effects. It has also been reported in multiple research experiments that it may also work as a painkiller for skin burns.
Can You Treat Sunburns With Vaseline?
Vaseline can aid in rehydrating burned skin to ensure that it heals more rapidly and to seal sunburns from future harm. Additionally, it stops any opened area of the wound from being contaminated by additional impurities. However, before attempting to treat the wound on your own, it could be worthwhile talking to a doctor if your sunburn is especially severe.
Is Vaseline Carcinogenic (Cancer-Gaining)?
We are unsure. Vaseline must have a complete refining history to be deemed “non-cancer-causing” in the EU and the US; however, the producer has not complied with this criterion. But there isn’t a single tip in the medical literature that using petroleum jelly on your skin poses any cancer risk. Vaseline looks to be typically non-toxic. However, inhaling liquid petroleum jelly particles is not advised because it could harm your lungs.
Final Summary
Now details about What Happens If Petroleum Jelly Catches Fire? Are concluding. It is simply not flammable since a very high temperature is required to ignite. A few minutes of exposure to a blow torch will cause a scoop of petroleum (Vaseline) to catch fire. It’s not volatile enough, that’s why.
Anything that burns must release vapors that can combine with the air and ignite, creating enough heat to sustain the process. At room temperature, materials that can burn but don’t release flammable gases are classified as “combustible” rather than “flammable”.
Longer chain hydrocarbons make up petroleum jelly compared to hydrocarbons that are either liquid at room temperature (like butane or propane) or gases at ambient temperature (like octane and decane). Because of the longer chains, it doesn’t evaporate significantly when not heated.
Now, you can set it on fire if you apply it to a wick, which keeps enough of the jelly inside a flame to continuously produce combustible gasses (this is why dipping cotton balls in petroleum jelly to construct firestarters when camping is a common practice).
It would be possible to create a flammable liquid if you could break the hydrocarbons down to light enough pieces without burning them, but as things stand, the jelly must be heated to a high temperature to burn.
