escargot
Disciple of Marduk
- Joined
- Aug 24, 2001
- Messages
- 43,409
- Location
- HM The Tower of London
They certainly go well with accidents, I think: "England's Glory is a brand of non-safety matches,
The 'safety' aspect of matches is to do with the use of phosphorus in the manufacture. Matches were originally made with white phosphorus which is dangerous both in manufacture and use.
This page explains it in depth -
(ReAgent Chemical Services, a UK chemical manufacturing company. Their website is fascinating.)
How Do Safety Matches Work?
In safety matches, the combustible chemicals are separated between the match head and the striking pad. So a safety match can't be struck on anything except the box it came in.
(I used to believe this was to stop children stealing matches to play with fire!)
Crucially, the highly dangerous white phosphorus found in early matches, which could spontaneously ignite at 30C in users' pockets was later replaced with red phosphorus. This ignites at 240C so trouser pocket-fires became less common until the 21st century when e-cigarettes arrived.