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For the book series by Jeanne DuPrau, see The City of Ember
The City of Ember

The City of Ember is a 2003 Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic science fiction book by Jeanne DuPrau. It revolves around the city of Ember, the one known human settlement in a pitch black world....
. Embers are the glowing, hot coals made of greatly heated wood
Wood

Wood is an organic material; in the strict sense wood is produced as secondary xylem in the stems of woody plants, notably trees but also shrubs, etc....
, coal
Coal

Coal is a readily combustion black or brownish-black sedimentary rock. The harder forms, such as anthracite, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure....
 or other carbon based material that remain after, or sometimes precede a fire
Fire

Fire is the oxidation of a combustion material releasing heat, light, and various Chemical reaction products such as carbon dioxide and water....
. Embers can glow very hot, nearly as hot and sometimes as hot as the fire which created them. They radiate a substantial amount of heat long after the fire has been extinguished, and if not taken care of properly can rekindle a fire that is thought to be completely extinguished and can pose a fire hazard to anyone who is not careful.






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For the book series by Jeanne DuPrau, see The City of Ember
The City of Ember

The City of Ember is a 2003 Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic science fiction book by Jeanne DuPrau. It revolves around the city of Ember, the one known human settlement in a pitch black world....
. Embers are the glowing, hot coals made of greatly heated wood
Wood

Wood is an organic material; in the strict sense wood is produced as secondary xylem in the stems of woody plants, notably trees but also shrubs, etc....
, coal
Coal

Coal is a readily combustion black or brownish-black sedimentary rock. The harder forms, such as anthracite, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure....
 or other carbon based material that remain after, or sometimes precede a fire
Fire

Fire is the oxidation of a combustion material releasing heat, light, and various Chemical reaction products such as carbon dioxide and water....
. Embers can glow very hot, nearly as hot and sometimes as hot as the fire which created them. They radiate a substantial amount of heat long after the fire has been extinguished, and if not taken care of properly can rekindle a fire that is thought to be completely extinguished and can pose a fire hazard to anyone who is not careful. In order to avoid the danger of accidentally spreading a fire, many campers pour cold water on the embers or cover them in dirt.

They are often used for cooking, such as in charcoal barbecue
Barbecue

Barbecue or barbeque is a method and apparatus for cooking food, often meat, with the heat and hot gases of a fire, smoking wood, or hot coals of charcoal and may include application of a marinade, spice rub, or Basting barbecue sauce to the meat....
s, and are preferred over open flame when roasting marshmallows on a campfire. This is because embers radiate a more constant form of heat, as opposed to an open fire which is constantly changing along with the heat it radiates.

An ember is usually formed when a fire has only partially burnt a piece of fuel, and there is still usable chemical energy in that piece of fuel. Often this happens because the usable chemical energy is so deep into the center that air (chemically O2) does not reach it, therefore not causing combustion
Combustion

Combustion or burning is a complex sequence of exothermic chemical reactions between a fuel and an oxidant accompanied by the production of heat or both heat and light in the form of either a glow or flames, appearance of light flickering....
 (Carbon
Carbon

Carbon is a chemical element with chemical symbol C and atomic number 6. As a member of group 14 on the periodic table, it is nonmetallic and tetravalence?making four electrons available to form covalent bond chemical bonds....
-based fuel + O2 --> CO2 + H2O + C + other chemicals involved). The reason that it continues to stay hot and does not lose its thermal energy quickly is because combustion is still happening at a miniature scale. The small yellow, orange and red lights often seen snaking throughout embers are actually combustion. There just is not enough combustion happening at one time to create a flame
Flame

A flame is the visible part of a fire. It is caused by a highly exothermic reaction taking place in a thin zone. If a fire is hot enough to ionize the gaseous components, it can become a Plasma ....
. By the time embers are completely 'burned through,' almost all of it is pure Carbon
Carbon

Carbon is a chemical element with chemical symbol C and atomic number 6. As a member of group 14 on the periodic table, it is nonmetallic and tetravalence?making four electrons available to form covalent bond chemical bonds....
 with loose physical bonds, which is why they crumble with the slightest touch. At that point they are normally called ashes.

Embers play a large role in forest fires. Since embers are typically burnt leaves and thus small and light, they can be blown away by the wind. During a large fire, with the right wind conditions, embers can be blown far ahead of the fire front, starting spot fires hundreds of metres away. One of the initial stages of defending against a bushfire is dubbed the "ember attack", in which embers will bombard the house, starting small fires in wooden structures.