On Wednesday, October 2, 2019 at 11:59:20 PM UTC-7, John Foster wrote:
On Wednesday, October 2, 2019 at 9:38:10 AM UTC-6, Dan Marotta wrote:
You are correct.Â* Oxygen doesn't burn.Â* But it really supports combustion!

When I was in AF flight school (early 70s, so everyone smoked), they
warned us about smoking with a mask dangling along side one's face.
Seems one fighter jock had his mask catch fire (maybe while lighting up,
maybe due to a cabin depressurization causing the O2 system to go into
pressure mode, who knows?).Â* The point was that he suffered serious
burns to his face.

Personally I never felt the need to smoke during a 2-hour flight with a
pressure demand mask and regulator.

On 10/2/2019 12:09 AM, wrote:
Many moons ago when I was a junior hospital doctor in a chest ward the preferred oxygen mask for low concentration O2 was the "Edinburgh mask" which had a circular hole in the front with the O2 nozzle entering at its lower circumference. Some of the chest patients loved it because they could smoke through the hole. As was demonstrated to me by a marginally less junior doctor, if you held the lit cig tip directly in the O2 outlet flow it just glowed brighter. Oxygen doesn't burn, it burns.

--
Dan, 5J

I've seen this twice in my career so far. Both times the person was smoking while oxygen was being administered through a nasal cannula. In one case, the cigarette actually exploded, sending the person the the ICU burn ward with 3rd degree burns to the face. NOT PRETTY!!!

The oxygen causes accelerated combustion of the tobacco, resulting in a flash of flame that can cause serious injury. I imagine this happens while they are taking a drag, and not just having it passively smolder in the presence of higher oxygen concentration though.

Natural selection at work.