Have you ever gone off and left a candle burning only to come home and find a blazing inferno? Well, the self-extinguishing candle has a wick that will only burn for so many minutes, then it goes out. Each wick is comprised of a section of combustible material, then a strip of non-combustible material, then another strip of combustible, etc. When you reach the non-combustible part and you want to continue enjoying the flame, you just snip off the part that won't burn and light up again. The wicks can be alternate in various intervals. With this candle, you can fall asleep without fear of sizzling whilst you snooze.
-- juliec2, May 23 2001

How candles work http://www.howstuff...com/question267.htm
[angel, May 23 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004]

I saw this implemented another way: a bendable soft-wax cylinder with a spring-loaded pincer. You pulled a 4-cm length of wax and wick up and clamped it in the pincer, and when the candle burned down to the pincer the wax melted and the pincer closed on the wick, extinguishing it. Of course you could also stand your candle in a bowl of water.
-- Dog Ed, May 23 2001


When I lived in Denmark, all candles (by law? I don't know) were self extinguishing. When the flame got to the last inch they would simply go out. When I first encountered this I spent some time trying to relight them until I realised what was going on. I would then take childish pleasure in getting visitors to try and relight them.
-- Gordon Comstock, May 23 2001


Candles with totally non-flammable wicks (eg glass fibre) would still work (see link), but the wick would need to be trimmed regularly. You would need to have layers of non-flammable stuff instead of the wax, but I'm not sure how you would get the candle to burn again after the flame encountered the first one (peel it off manually?).
-- angel, May 23 2001


Maybe you could make a totally non-flammable candle. That way, it would be completely safe. If you needed light, you could turn on a flashlight.
-- Uncle Apollo, May 23 2001


This wouldn't work. As long as the wick material is pourous, it would keep burning
-- -----, Oct 17 2004


Having the candles self-extinguish before the end of the wick could be a significant safety benefit because candles can sometimes flare up quite significantly when they reach the end. For example, I've seen "tea light" candles which would normally have about a less-than-1/2" flame grow to nearly 6".
-- supercat, Dec 29 2004



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