I’ve been trying to find out more about this because the story doesn’t make any sense:
“he approached the sleeping woman, and then lit her on fire with what was believed to be a lighter. She added the victim’s clothes became fully engulfed in a matter of seconds.”
Clothing shouldn’t just be flammable like that without some kind of accelerant.
https://www.cpsc.gov/Regulations-Laws--Standards/Statutes/Flammable-Fabrics-Act
I don’t know anything about this but in my misspent youth kids would take the regulator off adjustable disposable butane lighters and you could light the lighter and then basically pour the butane out of the lighter.
Something like that could surely ignite clothing and appear to be “just” a lighter.
Oh, yeah, that makes a ton more sense…
Nah, butane evaporates almost immediately at ambient temp/pressure.
Have you ever refilled a Zippo
… Yes. Why?
And you’ve never spilled butane from the Zippo fluid anywhere? It stays liquid long enough that one can go to a sink and wash it off.
Maybe you’re thinking of naphtha? That’s what old, cotton wick lighters used, but butane gasifies within 30s max. Might leave an odor/residue on your hands but that’s not particularly flammable.
Old skool lighter and the low pressure can of naphtha in the back, high pressure butane cylinder right:
This leaves plenty of time to splash someone and light it while still qualifying “instant”.
Sure. It’d have to be a lot though, just used to it boiling off very rapidly at anything above freezing temperatures.
Looking at the weather in NYC, it is below freezing right now, so maybe it really was butane, as the boiling point is around -1°C/30°F…
Regardless, this is fucked up.
Idk what to tell u buddy, the can in the picture on the right is specifically a butane refill can, and you can spray it on a surface and it’ll stay liquid for a bit. You can even light it on fire and it’ll stay that way. You can try the same thing with any pressurized can of deodorant for example, concentrated spraying for 3-5s on a surface will release enough liquid that you can light it on fire. Old party trick was to spray enough on a leg of pants (or an arm if daring) and light it, and then extinguish in a few seconds
Haven’t tried it. Strange, the boiling point of butane is -3°C, so that has to be a lot of butane to delay boil-off for that long.
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Zippos don’t use butane
https://www.zippo.com/products/premium-butane-fuel?gQT=1 Should probably let someone know that
They CAN, but not by default. You have to replace the insert.
Source: I have both a butane and electric Zippo.