A question about fire

Doing it in the other order would probably be more damaging, because blowing a stream of fire across a wet person would cause major steam scalds, but putting sprinklers on a burning person wouldn't produce much steam, unless the whole room is on fire.

Also, what qualifies as wet? Standing in a fog bank? Having alcohol dumped over you? Being sprayed with a plant mister bottle? Spilling tea on yourself?

It would also depend on how much and what kind of accelerant was used.

1) What kind of fire is it? Not all fires are put out by water. Oil and electrical fires, for example, are made worse. What's burning? Just his hair and clothes, or is there an accelerant?

2) Assuming the fire IS put out by water, I think there'd be a moment where he's wet but the temperature's pretty high on his skin.

This is a decision you probably have to make as a writer based on what you want. It'd make a lot of sense to me if he got some patchy first and second degree burns. But what outcome are you looking for?

You also need to consider timescales - a very high temperature will cause tissue damage quickly, but something in the region of 45C will take longer, and depend on how fast the heat can be transferred.

The threshold temperature for skin damage is around 43C (if I remember correctly) but the mechanisms are complex and very dependent on circumstances.

Prince Anpiel said:

To answer all of these, my character is vulnerable the minute water hits them, they are in a hallway soaked in booze that was sparked by an electrical fire.

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To clarify:

Is it only the wet bits of skin, or any drop of water anywhere makes the whole body vulnerable?

I assume you mean your character is soaked in booze. Has clothing started to burn? Water will dilute the alcohol quickly and easily quench the fire, and relatively speaking alcohol flames are not that hot (still enough to do damage, but very dependent on circumstances, volume of alcohol and water content) but burning synthetic fibre might burn longer, stay hot longer and damage skin that way.

It really does depend on scenario and how much damage you want.

So, your character is safe until he gets wet, then he feels the flames. Depending on the sprinkler system, the amount of alcohol and the extent of the flames you have a window of time when he is wet and before the flames are quenched. If his clothing catches fire before the sprinklers cut in then the severity goes up, and depending on how many layers of clothing, synthetic fibres can created a molten layer which can trap heat, themselves burn quite hot and take time not only to extinguish but also to cool the point they no longer do damage. If the fire catches him at ankle level early on, then there will be flame up around his legs and body, and his upper body may provide 'shelter' from the sprinklers for a while.

Realistically, you need to decide how much injury you want and adjust the severity of the fire and the timing on the sprinklers to suit. You also need to consider the long-term physical consequences - burns are remarkably painful, potentially slow to heal, and prone to infection unless treated carefully. Perhaps someone else on AW can give pointers on that - my own practical experience has been with relatively minor burns, and even those caused me problems for weeks.

Prince Anpiel said:

I am just very curious as to what will happen with all of the timing.

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That really is down to how you write the description describing the interaction of the fire, the sprinklers and your character. The quenching is not likely to be instantaneous, the severity of the fire is your decision. I would suggest writing it and seeing how it goes. You can always get your beta reader to comment, or post it under SYW and get some feedback.

As this is clearly an unrealistic, magical situation, you get to make up all the rules in any way you need to. It's hard to provide realistic advice to a completely unrealistic situation.

caw

Prince Anpiel said:

The hallway is soaked in booze, and only part of his body needs to be wet for all of his body to be vulnerable.

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Booze - brandy whisky etc - is at least 50% water so if he is soaked in it then he is already being harmed.