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🔥 Fire

Combustion, flames, explosions and volcanic heat — simulations built around fire as a physical process.

25 simulations60 fps real-time0 install steps
Pyroclastic Flow SimulatorNewTrigger an eruption-column or lava-dome collapse and watch a superheated, ground-hugging… Blast Wave — Shockwave & OverpressureNewA point-source blast wave in a uniform atmosphere, modelled with Sedov-Taylor scaling for… Confined Gas Explosion — Enclosure Pressure Buildup & VentingNewSimulate pressure buildup from a combustible gas/dust deflagration inside an enclosed… Detonation vs Deflagration — Combustion Wave Speed & PressureNewCompare the two fundamentally different ways a combustion wave can propagate through a… Fireworks Shell Burst — Projectile Trajectory & Star PatternNewSimulate a fireworks shell launched into the sky, bursting at its fuse-timed altitude into a… TNT-Equivalent Scaling — Safe Standoff DistanceNewExplore the Hopkinson-Cranz cube-root scaling law used in blast-safety engineering: convert… Neutron Star Merger & KilonovaNewWatch two neutron stars spiral together under gravitational-wave loss, merge, and blast out… 3D Cellular Automaton — Survival/Birth RulesNewExplore 3D cellular automata with Moore neighborhood (26 neighbors). Famous rules: Cloud,… Magnetic Reconnection — Solar Flares & SubstormsNewOppositely directed magnetic field lines break and reconnect at an X-point, explosively… Otto Cycle — How a Petrol Engine WorksNewThe four-stroke petrol engine cycle: adiabatic compression, constant-volume combustion,… Fusion ReactorNewSet plasma temperature, density and confinement time to test the Lawson criterion and see… Particle VFXNewParticle system VFX with fire, sparks and visual effects algorithms used in film and games. Particle System — Game VFX EmitterNewTune emitter rate, lifetime, gravity and colour ramps to build fire, smoke and explosion… Combustion ReactionNewWatch CH4 + 2O2 to CO2 + 2H2O unfold in a particle simulation. Methane and oxygen molecules… Fire & SmokeCellular automaton with fire, smoke, ember, ash, wood, water and wall cells. Wind direction,… Belousov-Zhabotinsky ReactionExcitable-medium cellular automaton simulating the oscillating BZ chemical reaction. Resting… Rocket Engine — de Laval Nozzle & ThrustFuel burns in the chamber and expands through a de Laval nozzle — tune chamber pressure,… Volcanic Eruption SimulatorControl magma viscosity, gas content and pressure to trigger explosive or effusive… Procedural TexturesGLSL fragment shader procedural textures: marble, wood rings, clouds, fire, Voronoi cells… Forest Fire SpreadCellular automaton simulation of forest fire spreading. Adjust tree density, ignition… Magic Sand & SmokeDraw with the mouse to create sand, smoke, fire or water. Cellular automaton with gravity,… FireworksParticle-based fireworks with gravity, drag, colour trails and explosion physics. Sand AutomatonSand, water, fire, wood, acid, smoke. Draw with mouse — watch substance reactions. Premixed Flame Front — PropagationA premixed flame front propagating via reaction-diffusion with Arrhenius kinetics. Nuclear Fusion — Tokamak & Lawson CriterionTune plasma temperature, density and confinement time in a tokamak to hit the Lawson…
About the category

Fire

Fire sims model combustion chemistry, radiative heat and particle-based flame/smoke rendering — from a falling-sand chemistry toy to full rocket-engine and forest-fire spread models.

Real combustion is a chain reaction: fuel plus oxidiser above an ignition temperature releases heat faster than it escapes, so the reaction accelerates until something runs out. The sims here reproduce that feedback loop numerically — flame-front propagation in forest-fire, Sedov-Taylor blast scaling in blast-wave-overpressure, de Laval nozzle thrust in rocket-engine, and pyroclastic density currents in pyroclastic-flow.

They live across several physics categories (fire-combustion, explosions, volcanology, engineering) — this page pulls them all into one place by theme, without changing their canonical category.

Quick facts
25interactive simulations in this category
🗂️Spans 15 categories
runs at 60 FPS in any modern browser
🎓CC BY 4.0 — free for classrooms and LMS embeds

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to install anything to run fire simulations?

No. Everything runs entirely in your browser — no downloads, plugins or accounts. Works in Chrome, Firefox, Edge and Safari; most simulations also work on mobile.

Is this the same as a category?

No — an element (like fire or water) is a cross-cutting theme. A sim keeps its normal category (e.g. fluid-dynamics, geology) and can also appear on one or more element pages.

Can I use these simulations for teaching?

Yes — all content is free for educational use under CC BY 4.0. Link to any simulation directly or embed it in your LMS with an iframe.

Why does a flame flicker and point upward?

Hot combustion gases are less dense than the surrounding air, so buoyancy pulls them up — the same reason smoke rises. Turbulence in that rising plume is what makes a flame flicker rather than burn as a smooth cone; sims like fire-smoke model it as a cellular automaton, others as a full fluid solver.

What's the difference between fire, explosions and volcanology sims here?

All three release chemical or thermal energy fast, but at very different rates and scales: combustion (combustion, forest-fire) is a self-sustaining chain reaction over seconds to hours, an explosion (blast-wave-overpressure) releases energy almost instantly as a shockwave, and volcanology (pyroclastic-flow, volcanic-eruption) moves molten rock and gas over minutes to days.

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