Talk:Airbending/@comment-76.24.189.176-20120121100340/@comment-4521003-20120211055919

FireFire is created/started and sustained by chemical reactions, but the fire itself is heat that's strong enough to force atoms to give off light. The only thing the chemical reactions do is release energy and transform carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen (found in oxygen gas and organic matter) into carbon monoxide and water vapor. Different fire colors come from different atoms releasing light and from different intensities of heat. Since electrons are what cause atoms to emit light and electrons also make electricity, which is part of lightning, Firebending is probably lagrely tied to controlling electrons, not to the reactions that make it or the gases it creates. If Firebenders controlled the things that make fire, and not the fire itself, then they would need a source of fire like in the [screwed up] live-action movie. But they don't, they create fire out of thin air, which means that Firebenders deal with the energy required for fire and not the reactions that can create that energy.

I'm wondering how much you actually know about chemistry. Have you taken chemistry classes? Read a chemistry textbook? Or do you just have 'common knowledge'?