CHINESE PRAYING ALTAR FIRES INVOLVING ULTRAPURE PARAFFIN OILS

摘要

Praying altars may be a common find in the Chinese households, shops, offices and factories in Singapore. A typical Chinese praying altar comprises a central wooden tablet or porcelain figurine, surrounded by a joss sticks holder, oil lamp, vase of green plant or flowers, electrical lamps and offerings of fruits, Chinese cakes and meats. Fires involving praying altars do happen occasionally and in some rare instances, eye-witnesses reported seeing an open-cup flame at the oil lamp. The oil lamp is usually a glass receptacle filled with palm oil, with a lighted floating wick. Through a series of experiments, it was established that the open-cup flame came about when ultrapure paraffin oils were used in oil lamps with the lighted floating wick. It was also established that ultrapure paraffin oils have a significantly lower flashpoint (74°C - 120°C) than palm oils (161°C - 220°C). This paper reports on the investigation of the open-cup flame phenomenon arising from the use of incompatible lamp accessories with ultrapure paraffin oils. Details on the experiments and observations will also be presented.