Fire quenching by electricity

[principled]

The link below discusses a phenomenon apparently discovered over 200 years ago where a high voltage can be used to extinguish a flame.
I've searched the Internet for more info, but have drawn a blank.
Anyone know the science behind it?
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1370616/Fighting-volts-How-water-hoses-replaced-electric-wands.html
P

[speakertoanimals]

Seems to go back a while:

oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA386379


Another defence site:

Fire in a combat vehicle or other confined space puts warfighters at risk. DARPA's Instant Fire Suppression (IFS) program seeks to establish the feasibility of a novel flame-suppression system based on destabilization of flame plasma with electromagnetic fields, acoustics, ion injection, or other novel approaches. The key to transformative firefighting approaches may lie in the fundamental understanding of fire itself. Fire suppression technologies have focused largely on disrupting the chemical reactions involved in combustion. From a physics point of view, however, flames are cold plasmas comprising mobile electrons and slower positive ions. By using physics techniques rather than combustion chemistry, it may be possible to manipulate and extinguish flames. To achieve this, key scientific breakthroughs are needed to understand and quantify the interaction of electromagnetic and acoustic waves with the plasma in a flame. Research results will be used to determine the scalability of potential techniques. If scaling is achievable, the program will build a prototype fire suppression system for Class A and B fires inside a ship or HUMVEE-sized compartment.

www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/DSO/Programs/Instant_Fire_Suppression_%28IFS%29.aspx

I gues the thing is is that flame is a plasma, hence if you can wang the ions about, you might be able to disrupt the chemistry going on.

[principled]

Thanks for the links STA. Interesting, especially when they talk about:

It is also the only process known at present that is fast enough to be considered for use in explosion mitigation applications.

Still, there is much distance between theory and practice!
P

[speakertoanimals]

Explosion mitigation applications -- with someone waving a magic electric wand about.........................I'd feel a bit nervous about that is I were a grunt...............Like saying, it's okay guys, the sergeant has his light sabre......................