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Fresco

Fresco ( or frescoes) is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaster, the painting becomes an integral part of the wall. The word fresco (affresco) is derived from the Italian adjective fresco meaning "fresh", and may thus be contrasted with fresco-secco or secco mural painting techniques, which are applied to dried plaster, to supplement painting in fresco. The fresco technique has been employed since antiquity and is closely associated with Italian Renaissance painting.

The word fresco is commonly and inaccurately used in English to refer to any wall painting regardless of the plaster technology or binding medium. This, in part, contributes to a misconception that the most geographically and temporally common wall painting technology was the painting into wet lime plaster. Even in apparently buon fresco technology, the use of supplementary organic materials was widespread, if underrecognized.

Technology

Buon fresco pigment is mixed with room temperature water and is used on a thin layer of wet, fresh plaster, called the intonaco (after the Italian word for plaster). Because of the chemical makeup of the plaster, a binder is not required, as the pigment mixed solely with the water will sink into the intonaco, which itself becomes the medium holding the pigment. The pigment is absorbed by the wet plaster; after a number of hours, the plaster dries in reaction to air: it is this chemical reaction which fixes the pigment particles in the plaster. The chemical processes are as follows:
 * calcination of limestone in a lime kiln: CaCO3 → CaO + CO2
 * slaking of quicklime: CaO + H2O → Ca(OH)2
 * setting of the lime plaster: Ca(OH)2 + CO2 → CaCO3 + H2O

In painting buon fresco, a rough underlayer called the arriccio is added to the whole area to be painted and allowed to dry for some days. Many artists sketched their compositions on this underlayer, which would never be seen, in a red pigment called sinopia, a name also used to refer to these under-paintings. Later,new techniques for transferring paper drawings to the wall were developed. The main lines of a drawing made on paper were pricked over with a point, the paper held against the wall, and a bag of soot (spolvero) banged on them to produce black dots along the lines. If the painting was to be done over an existing fresco, the surface would be roughened to provide better adhesion. On the day of painting, the intonaco, a thinner, smooth layer of fine plaster was added to the amount of wall that was expected to be completed that day, sometimes matching the contours of the figures or the landscape, but more often just starting from the top of the composition. This area is called the giornata ("day's work"), and the different day stages can usually be seen in a large fresco, by a faint seam that separates one from the next.

Buon frescoes are difficult to create because of the deadline associated with the drying plaster. Generally, a layer of plaster will require ten to twelve hours to dry; ideally, an artist would begin to paint after one hour and continue until two hours before the drying time—giving seven to nine hours' working time. Once a giornata is dried, no more buon fresco can be done, and the unpainted intonaco must be removed with a tool before starting again the next day. If mistakes have been made, it may also be necessary to remove the whole intonaco for that area—or to change them later, a secco. An indispensable component of this process is the carbonatation of the lime, which fixes the colour in the plaster ensuring durability of the fresco for future generations.

A technique used in the popular frescoes of Michelangelo and Raphael was to scrape indentations into certain areas of the plaster while still wet to increase the illusion of depth and to accent certain areas over others. The eyes of the people of the School of Athens are sunken-in using this technique which causes the eyes to seem deeper and more pensive. Michelangelo used this technique as part of his trademark 'outlining' of his central figures within his frescoes.

In a wall-sized fresco, there may be ten to twenty or even more giornate, or separate areas of plaster. After five centuries, the giornate, which were originally nearly invisible, have sometimes become visible, and in many large-scale frescoes, these divisions may be seen from the ground. Additionally, the border between giornate was often covered by an a secco painting, which has since fallen off.

One of the first painters in the post-classical period to use this technique was the Isaac Master (or Master of the Isaac fresco, and thus a name used to refer to the unknown master of a particular painting) in the Upper Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi. A person who creates fresco is called a frescoist.

Other types of wall painting

A secco or fresco-secco painting is done on dry plaster (secco meaning "dry" in Italian). The pigments thus require a binding medium, such as egg (tempera), glue or oil to attach the pigment to the wall. It is important to distinguish between a secco work done on top of buon fresco, which according to most authorities was in fact standard from the Middle Ages onwards, and work done entirely a secco on a blank wall. Generally, buon fresco works are more durable than any a secco work added on top of them, because a secco work lasts better with a roughened plaster surface, whilst true fresco should have a smooth one. The additional a secco work would be done to make changes, and sometimes to add small details, but also because not all colours can be achieved in true fresco, because only some pigments work chemically in the very alkaline environment of fresh lime-based plaster. Blue was a particular problem, and skies and blue robes were often added a secco, because neither azurite blue nor lapis lazuli, the only two blue pigments then available, works well in wet fresco.

It has also become increasingly clear, thanks to modern analytical techniques, that even in the early Italian Renaissance painters quite frequently employed a secco techniques so as to allow the use of a broader range of pigments. In most early examples this work has now entirely vanished, but a whole painting done a secco on a surface roughened to give a key for the paint may survive very well, although damp is more threatening to it than to buon fresco.

A third type called a mezzo-fresco is painted on nearly dry intonaco—firm enough not to take a thumb-print, says the sixteenth-century author Ignazio Pozzo—so that the pigment only penetrates slightly into the plaster. By the end of the sixteenth century this had largely displaced buon fresco, and was used by painters such as Gianbattista Tiepolo or Michelangelo. This technique had, in reduced form, the advantages of a secco work.

The three key advantages of work done entirely a secco were that it was quicker, mistakes could be corrected, and the colours varied less from when applied to when fully dry—in wet fresco there was a considerable change.

For wholly a secco work, the intonaco is laid with a rougher finish, allowed to dry completely and then usually given a key by rubbing with sand. The painter then proceeds much as he or she would on a canvas or wood panel.

Egypt and ancient Near East
The first known Egyptian fresco was found in Tomb 100 at Hierakonpolis, and dated to c. 3500–3200 BC. Several of the themes and designs visible in the fresco are otherwise known from other Naqada II objects, such as the Gebel el-Arak Knife. It shows the scene of a "Master of Animals", a man fighting against two lions, individual fighting scenes, and Egyptian and foreign boats. Ancient Egyptians painted many tombs and houses, but those wall paintings are not frescoes.

An old fresco from Mesopotamia is the Investiture of Zimri-Lim (modern Syria), dating from the early 18th century BC.

Aegean civilizations
The oldest frescoes done in the buon fresco method date from the first half of the second millennium BCE during the Bronze Age and are to be found among Aegean civilizations, more precisely Minoan art from the island of Crete and other islands of the Aegean Sea. The most famous of these, the Bull-Leaping Fresco, depicts a sacred ceremony in which individuals jump over the backs of large bulls. The oldest surviving Minoan frescoes are found on the island of Santorini (classically known as Thera), dated to the Neo-Palatial period (c. 1640–1600 BC).

While some similar frescoes have been found in other locations around the Mediterranean basin, particularly in Egypt and Morocco, their origins are subject to speculation. Some art historians believe that fresco artists from Crete may have been sent to various locations as part of a trade exchange, a possibility which raises to the fore the importance of this art form within the society of the times. The most common form of fresco was Egyptian wall paintings in tombs, usually using the a secco technique.

Classical antiquity

Frescoes were also painted in ancient Greece, but few of these works have survived. In southern Italy, at Paestum, which was a Greek colony of the Magna Graecia, a tomb containing frescoes dating back to 470 BC, the so-called Tomb of the Diver, was discovered in June 1968. These frescoes depict scenes of the life and society of ancient Greece, and constitute valuable historical testimonials. One shows a group of men reclining at a symposium, while another shows a young man diving into the sea. Etruscan frescoes, dating from the 4th century BC, have been found in the Tomb of Orcus near Veii, Italy. The richly decorated Thracian frescoes of the Tomb of Kazanlak are dating back to 4th century BC, making it a UNESCO protected World Heritage Site. Roman wall paintings, such as those at the magnificent Villa dei Misteri (1st century BC) in the ruins of Pompeii, and others at Herculaneum, were completed in buon fresco.

Roman (Christian) frescoes from the 1st to 2nd centuries AD were found in catacombs beneath Rome, and Byzantine icons were also found in Cyprus, Crete, Ephesus, Cappadocia, and Antioch. Roman frescoes were done by the artist painting the artwork on the still damp plaster of the wall, so that the painting is part of the wall, actually colored plaster.

Also a historical collection of Ancient Christian frescoes can be found in the Churches of Göreme.

India

Thanks to large number of ancient rock-cut cave temples, valuable ancient and early medieval frescoes have been preserved in more than 20 locations of India. The frescoes on the ceilings and walls of the Ajanta Caves were painted between c. 200 BC and 600 and are the oldest known frescoes in India. They depict the Jataka tales that are stories of the Buddha's life in former existences as Bodhisattva. The narrative episodes are depicted one after another although not in a linear order. Their identification has been a core area of research on the subject since the time of the site's rediscovery in 1819. Other locations with valuable preserved ancient and early medieval frescoes include Bagh Caves, Ellora Caves, Sittanavasal, Armamalai Cave, Badami Cave Temples and other locations. Frescoes have been made in several techniques, including tempera technique.

The later Chola paintings were discovered in 1931 within the circumambulatory passage of the Brihadisvara Temple in India and are the first Chola specimens discovered.

Researchers have discovered the technique used in these frescos. A smooth batter of limestone mixture was applied over the stones, which took two to three days to set. Within that short span, such large paintings were painted with natural organic pigments.

During the Nayak period, the Chola paintings were painted over. The Chola frescos lying underneath have an ardent spirit of saivism expressed in them. They probably synchronised with the completion of the temple by Rajaraja Cholan the Great.

The frescoes in Dogra/ Pahari style paintings exist in their unique form at Sheesh Mahal of Ramnagar (105 km from Jammu and 35 km west of Udhampur). Scenes from epics of Mahabharat and Ramayan along with portraits of local lords form the subject matter of these wall paintings. Rang Mahal of Chamba (Himachal Pradesh) is another site of historic Dogri fresco with wall paintings depicting scenes of Draupti Cheer Haran, and Radha- Krishna Leela. This can be seen preserved at National Museum at New Delhi in a chamber called Chamba Rang Mahal.

During the Mughal Era, frescos were used for making interior design on walls and inside the ceilings of domes.

Sri Lanka
The Sigiriya Frescoes are found in Sigiriya in Sri Lanka. Painted during the reign of King Kashyapa I (ruled 477 – 495 AD). The generally accepted view is that they are portrayals of women of the royal court of the king depicted as celestial nymphs showering flowers upon the humans below. They bear some resemblance to the Gupta style of painting found in the Ajanta Caves in India. They are, however, far more enlivened and colorful and uniquely Sri Lankan in character. They are the only surviving secular art from antiquity found in Sri Lanka today.

The painting technique used on the Sigiriya paintings is "fresco lustro". It varies slightly from the pure fresco technique in that it also contains a mild binding agent or glue. This gives the painting added durability, as clearly demonstrated by the fact that they have survived, exposed to the elements, for over 1,500 years.

Located in a small sheltered depression a hundred meters above ground only 19 survive today. Ancient references, however, refer to the existence of as many as five hundred of these frescoes.

Middle Ages
The late Medieval period and the Renaissance saw the most prominent use of fresco, particularly in Italy, where most churches and many government buildings still feature fresco decoration. This change coincided with the reevaluation of murals in the liturgy. Romanesque churches in Catalonia were richly painted in 12th and 13th century, with both decorative and educational—for the illiterate faithfuls—roles, as can be seen in the MNAC in Barcelona, where is kept a large collection of Catalan romanesque art. In Denmark too, church wall paintings or kalkmalerier were widely used in the Middle Ages (first Romanesque, then Gothic) and can be seen in some 600 Danish churches as well as in churches in the south of Sweden, which was Danish at the time.

One of the rare examples of Islamic fresco painting can be seen in Qasr Amra, the desert palace of the Umayyads in the 8th century Magotez.

Early modern Europe
Fresco painting continued into the Baroque in southern Europe, for churches and especially palaces. Gianbattista Tiepolo was arguably the last major exponent of this tradition, with huge schemes for palaces in Madrid and Würzburg in Germany.

Northern Romania (historical region of Moldavia) boasts about a dozen painted monasteries, completely covered with frescos inside and out, that date from the last quarter of the 15th century to the second quarter of the 16th century. The most remarkable are the monastic foundations at Voroneţ (1487), Arbore (1503), Humor (1530), and Moldoviţa (1532). Suceviţa, dating from 1600, represents a late return to the style developed some 70 years earlier. The tradition of painted churches continued into the 19th century in other parts of Romania, although never to the same extent.

Henri Clément Serveau produced several frescos including a three by six meter painting for the Lycée de Meaux, where he was once a student. He directed the École de fresques at l'École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, and decorated the Pavillon du Tourisme at the 1937 Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne (Paris), Pavillon de la Ville de Paris; now at Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. In 1954 he realized a fresco for the Cité Ouvrière du Laboratoire Débat, Garches. He also executed mural decorations for the Plan des anciennes enceintes de Paris in the Musée Carnavalet.

The Foujita chapel in Reims completed in 1966, is an example of modern frescos, the interior being painted with religious scenes by the School of Paris painter Tsuguharu Foujita. In 1996, it was designated an historic monument by the French government.

Mexican muralism
José Clemente Orozco, Fernando Leal, David Siqueiros and Diego Rivera the famous Mexican artists, renewed the art of fresco painting in the 20th century. Orozco, Siqueiros, Rivera and his wife Frida Kahlo contributed more to the history of Mexican fine arts and to the reputation of Mexican art in general than anybody else. Channeling pre-Columbian Mexican artworks including the true frescoes at Teotihuacan, Orozco, Siqueiros, River and Fernando Leal established the art movement known as Mexican Muralism.

Contemporary
There have been comparatively few frescoes created since the 1960s but there are some significant exceptions.

The American artist, Brice Marden's monochrome works first shown in 1966 at Bykert Gallery, New York were inspired by frescos and "watching masons plastering stucco walls." While Marden employed the imagistic effects of fresco, David Novros was developing a 50-year practice around the technique. David Novros is an American painter and a muralist of geometric abstraction. In 1968 Donald Judd commissioned Novros to create a work at 101 Spring Street, New York, NY soon after he had purchased the building. Novros used medieval techniques to create the mural by "first preparing a full-scale cartoon, which he transferred to the wet plaster using the traditional pouncing technique," the act of passing powdered pigment onto the plaster through tiny perforations in a cartoon. The surface unity of the fresco was important to Novros in that the pigment he used bonded with the drying plaster, becoming part of the wall rather than a surface coating. This site-specific work was Novros's first true fresco, which was restored by the artist in 2013.

The American painter, James Hyde first presented frescoes in New York at the Esther Rand Gallery, Thompkins Square Park in 1985. At that time Hyde was using true fresco technique on small panels made of cast concrete arranged on the wall. Throughout the next decade Hyde experimented with multiple rigid supports for the fresco plaster including composite board and plate glass. In 1991 at John Good Gallery in New York City, Hyde debuted true fresco applied on an enormous block of Styrofoam. Holland Cotter of the New York Times described the work as "objectifying some of the individual elements that have made modern paintings paintings." While Hyde's work "ranges from paintings on photographic prints to large-scale installations, photography, and abstract furniture design" his frescoes on Styrofoam have been a significant form of his work since the 1980s.

The frescoes have been shown throughout Europe and the United States. In ArtForum David Pagel wrote, "like ruins from some future archaeological dig, Hyde's nonrepresentational frescoes on large chunks of Styrofoam give suggestive shape to the fleeting landscape of the present." Over its long history, practitioners of frescoes always took a careful methodological approach. Hyde's frescoes are done improvisationally. The contemporary disposability of the Styrofoam structure contrast the permanence of the classical fresco technique. In 1993, Hyde mounted four automobile sized frescoes on Styrofoam suspended from a brick wall. Progressive Insurance commissioned this site-specific work for the monumental 80- foot atrium in their headquarters in Cleveland, Ohio.

Ancient and Early Medieval

 * Ancient Aegean frescoes
 * Etruscan tomb frescoes
 * Frescoes of Pompeii
 * Frescoes from the Roman catacombs (see also Early Christian art and architecture)
 * Castelseprio

Bulgaria

 * Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Sofia
 * Bachkovo Monastery
 * Boyana Church
 * Church of St. George, Sofia
 * Rila Monastery
 * Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo
 * Roman Tomb (Silistra)
 * Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak
 * Thracian tomb of Aleksandrovo
 * Transfiguration Monastery

Colombia

 * Santiago Martinez Delgado frescoed a mural in the Colombian Congress Building, and also in the Colombian National Building.

Czechia

 * Rotunda of Saint Catherine in Znojmo

France

 * Saint-Esprit, Paris

Late Medieval-Quattrocento

 * Panels (including Giotto(?), Lorenzetti, Martini and others) in upper and lower Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi
 * Giotto, Cappella degli Scrovegni (Arena Chapel), Padua
 * Camposanto, Pisa
 * Masaccio, Brancacci Chapel, Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence
 * Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Palazzo Pubblico, Siena
 * Piero della Francesca, Chiesa di San Francesco, Arezzo
 * Ghirlandaio, Cappella Tornabuoni, Santa Maria Novella, Florence
 * The Last Supper, Leonardo da Vinci, Milan (technically a tempera on plaster and stone, not a true fresco )
 * Sistine Chapel Wall series: Botticelli, Perugino, Rossellini, Signorelli, and Ghirlandaio
 * Luca Signorelli, Chapel of San Brizio, Duomo, Orvieto

High Renaissance

 * Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel ceiling
 * Raphael, Raphael Rooms
 * Raphael, Villa Farnesina
 * Giulio Romano's Palazzo del Tè, Mantua
 * Mantegna, Camera degli Sposi, Palazzo Ducale, Mantua
 * The dome of the Florence Cathedral
 * The Loves of the Gods, Annibale Carracci, Palazzo Farnese, Rome
 * Allegory of Divine Providence and Barberini Power, Pietro da Cortona, Palazzo Barberini
 * Ceilings, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, (New Residenz) Würzburg, (Royal Palace) Madrid, (Villa Pisani) Stra, and others; Wall scenes (Villa Valmarana and Palazzo Labia)
 * Nave ceiling, Andrea Pozzo, Sant'Ignazio, Rome

Mexico

 * Fresco Cycle of The Miracles of the Virgin of Guadalupe by Fernando Leal, at Basilica of Guadalupe, Mexico City
 * Fresco Cycle of Bolivar's Epic by Fernando Leal, at Colegio de San Ildefonso, Mexico City
 * Fresco cycle, a series of frescos done about a particular subject

The Netherlands

 * Château St. Gerlach

Serbian Medieval

 * Visoki Dečani
 * Gračanica monastery
 * Studenica monastery
 * Mileševa monastery

United States

 * Prometheus in Pomona College's Frary Dining Hall. Painted in 1930 by José Clemente Orozco, it is the first example of a modern, Mexican fresco mural in the U.S.
 * St. Ann Arts and Cultural Center in Woonsocket, RI. Home of the largest collection of fresco paintings in North America.

Conservation of frescoes
The climate and environment of Venice has proved to be a problem for frescoes and other works of art in the city for centuries. The city is built on a lagoon in northern Italy. The humidity and the rise of water over the centuries have created a phenomenon known as rising damp. As the lagoon water rises and seeps into the foundation of a building, the water is absorbed and rises up through the walls often causing damage to frescoes. Venetians have become quite adept in the conservation methods of frescoes. The mold aspergillus versicolor can grow after flooding, to consume nutrients from frescoes.

The following is the process that was used when rescuing frescoes in La Fenice, a Venetian opera house, but the same process can be used for similarly damaged frescoes. First, a protection and support bandage of cotton gauze and polyvinyl alcohol is applied. Difficult sections are removed with soft brushes and localized vacuuming. The other areas that are easier to remove (because they had been damaged by less water) are removed with a paper pulp compress saturated with bicarbonate of ammonia solutions and removed with deionized water. These sections are strengthened and reattached then cleansed with base exchange resin compresses and the wall and pictorial layer were strengthened with barium hydrate. The cracks and detachments are stopped with lime putty and injected with an epoxy resin loaded with micronized silica.

title: Fresco


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Fire

Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (the fuel) in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products. At a certain point in the combustion reaction, called the ignition point, flames are produced. The flame is the visible portion of the fire. Flames consist primarily of carbon dioxide, water vapor, oxygen and nitrogen. If hot enough, the gases may become ionized to produce plasma. Depending on the substances alight, and any impurities outside, the color of the flame and the fire's intensity will be different.

Fire, in its most common form, has the potential to result in conflagration, which can lead to physical damage, which can be permanent, through burning. Fire is a significant process that influences ecological systems worldwide. The positive effects of fire include stimulating growth and maintaining various ecological systems. Its negative effects include hazard to life and property, atmospheric pollution, and water contamination. When fire removes protective vegetation, heavy rainfall can contribute to increased soil erosion by water. Additionally, the burning of vegetation releases nitrogen into the atmosphere, unlike elements such as potassium and phosphorus which remain in the ash and are quickly recycled into the soil. This loss of nitrogen caused by a fire produces a long-term reduction in the fertility of the soil, which can be recovered as atmospheric nitrogen is fixed and converted to ammonia by natural phenomena such as lightning or by leguminous plants such as clover, peas, and green beans.

Fire is one of the four classical elements and has been used by humans in rituals, in agriculture for clearing land, for cooking, generating heat and light, for signaling, propulsion purposes, smelting, forging, incineration of waste, cremation, and as a weapon or mode of destruction.

Etymology
The word "fire" originated, which can be traced back to the Germanic root *fūr-, which itself comes from the Proto-Indo-European *perjos from the root *paewr- fire. The current spelling of "fire" has been in use since as early as 1200, but it was not until around 1600 that it completely replaced the Middle English term fier (which is still preserved in the word "fiery").

Fossil record
The fossil record of fire first appears with the establishment of a land-based flora in the Middle Ordovician period,, permitting the accumulation of oxygen in the atmosphere as never before, as the new hordes of land plants pumped it out as a waste product. When this concentration rose above 13%, it permitted the possibility of wildfire. Wildfire is first recorded in the Late Silurian fossil record,, by fossils of charcoalified plants. Apart from a controversial gap in the Late Devonian, charcoal is present ever since. The level of atmospheric oxygen is closely related to the prevalence of charcoal: clearly oxygen is the key factor in the abundance of wildfire. Fire also became more abundant when grasses radiated and became the dominant component of many ecosystems, around ; this kindling provided tinder which allowed for the more rapid spread of fire. These widespread fires may have initiated a positive feedback process, whereby they produced a warmer, drier climate more conducive to fire.

Early human control
The ability to control fire was a dramatic change in the habits of early humans. Making fire to generate heat and light made it possible for people to cook food, simultaneously increasing the variety and availability of nutrients and reducing disease by killing pathogenic microorganisms in the food. The heat produced would also help people stay warm in cold weather, enabling them to live in cooler climates. Fire also kept nocturnal predators at bay. Evidence of occasional cooked food is found from. Although this evidence shows that fire may have been used in a controlled fashion about 1 million years ago, other sources put the date of regular use at 400,000 years ago. Evidence becomes widespread around 50 to 100 thousand years ago, suggesting regular use from this time; interestingly, resistance to air pollution started to evolve in human populations at a similar point in time. The use of fire became progressively more sophisticated, as it was used to create charcoal and to control wildlife from tens of thousands of years ago.

Fire has also been used for centuries as a method of torture and execution, as evidenced by death by burning as well as torture devices such as the iron boot, which could be filled with water, oil, or even lead and then heated over an open fire to the agony of the wearer. By the Neolithic Revolution, during the introduction of grain-based agriculture, people all over the world used fire as a tool in landscape management. These fires were typically controlled burns or "cool fires", as opposed to uncontrolled "hot fires", which damage the soil. Hot fires destroy plants and animals, and endanger communities. This is especially a problem in the forests of today where traditional burning is prevented in order to encourage the growth of timber crops. Cool fires are generally conducted in the spring and autumn. They clear undergrowth, burning up biomass that could trigger a hot fire should it get too dense. They provide a greater variety of environments, which encourages game and plant diversity. For humans, they make dense, impassable forests traversable. Another human use for fire in regards to landscape management is its use to clear land for agriculture. Slash-and-burn agriculture is still common across much of tropical Africa, Asia and South America. For small farmers, controlled fires are a convenient way to clear overgrown areas and release nutrients from standing vegetation back into the soil. However, this useful strategy is also problematic. Growing population, fragmentation of forests and warming climate are making the earth's surface more prone to ever-larger escaped fires. These harm ecosystems and human infrastructure, cause health problems, and send up spirals of carbon and soot that may encourage even more warming of the atmosphere – and thus feed back into more fires. Globally today, as much as 5 million square kilometres – an area more than half the size of the United States – burns in a given year.

Later human control
There are numerous modern applications of fire. In its broadest sense, fire is used by nearly every human being on Earth in a controlled setting every day. Users of internal combustion vehicles employ fire every time they drive. Thermal power stations provide electricity for a large percentage of humanity by igniting fuels such as coal, oil or natural gas, then using the resultant heat to boil water into steam, which then drives turbines.

Use of fire in war
The use of fire in warfare has a long history. Fire was the basis of all early thermal weapons. The Byzantine fleet used Greek fire to attack ships and men.

The invention of gunpowder in China led to the fire lance, a flame-thrower weapon dating to around 1000 CE which was a precursor to projectile weapons driven by burning gunpowder.

The earliest modern flamethrowers were used by infantry in the First World War, first used by German troops against entrenched French troops near Verdun in February 1915. They were later successfully mounted on armoured vehicles in the Second World War.

Hand-thrown incendiary bombs improvised from glass bottles, later known as Molotov cocktails, were deployed during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. Also during that war, incendiary bombs were deployed against Guernica by Fascist Italian and Nazi German air forces that had been created specifically to support Franco's Nationalists.

Incendiary bombs were dropped by Axis and Allies during the Second World War, notably on Coventry, Tokyo, Rotterdam, London, Hamburg and Dresden; in the latter two cases firestorms were deliberately caused in which a ring of fire surrounding each city was drawn inward by an updraft caused by a central cluster of fires. The United States Army Air Force also extensively used incendiaries against Japanese targets in the latter months of the war, devastating entire cities constructed primarily of wood and paper houses. The incendiary fluid napalm was used in July 1944, towards the end of the Second World War, although its use did not gain public attention until the Vietnam War.

Fire management
Controlling a fire to optimize its size, shape, and intensity is generally called fire management, and the more advanced forms of it, as traditionally (and sometimes still) practiced by skilled cooks, blacksmiths, ironmasters, and others, are highly skilled activities. They include knowledge of which fuel to burn; how to arrange the fuel; how to stoke the fire both in early phases and in maintenance phases; how to modulate the heat, flame, and smoke as suited to the desired application; how best to bank a fire to be revived later; how to choose, design, or modify stoves, fireplaces, bakery ovens, or industrial furnaces; and so on. Detailed expositions of fire management are available in various books about blacksmithing, about skilled camping or military scouting, and about domestic arts.

Productive use for energy
Burning fuel converts chemical energy into heat energy; wood has been used as fuel since prehistory. The International Energy Agency states that nearly 80% of the world's power has consistently come from fossil fuels such as petroleum, natural gas, and coal in the past decades. The fire in a power station is used to heat water, creating steam that drives turbines. The turbines then spin an electric generator to produce electricity. Fire is also used to provide mechanical work directly by thermal expansion, in both external and internal combustion engines.

The unburnable solid remains of a combustible material left after a fire is called clinker if its melting point is below the flame temperature, so that it fuses and then solidifies as it cools, and ash if its melting point is above the flame temperature.

Chemistry
Fire is a chemical process in which a fuel and an oxidizing agent react, yielding carbon dioxide and water. This process, known as a combustion reaction, does not proceed directly and involves intermediates. Although the oxidizing agent is typically oxygen, other compounds are able to fulfill the role. For instance, chlorine trifluoride is able to ignite sand.

Fires start when a flammable or a combustible material, in combination with a sufficient quantity of an oxidizer such as oxygen gas or another oxygen-rich compound (though non-oxygen oxidizers exist), is exposed to a source of heat or ambient temperature above the flash point for the fuel/oxidizer mix, and is able to sustain a rate of rapid oxidation that produces a chain reaction. This is commonly called the fire tetrahedron. Fire cannot exist without all of these elements in place and in the right proportions. For example, a flammable liquid will start burning only if the fuel and oxygen are in the right proportions. Some fuel-oxygen mixes may require a catalyst, a substance that is not consumed, when added, in any chemical reaction during combustion, but which enables the reactants to combust more readily.

Once ignited, a chain reaction must take place whereby fires can sustain their own heat by the further release of heat energy in the process of combustion and may propagate, provided there is a continuous supply of an oxidizer and fuel.

If the oxidizer is oxygen from the surrounding air, the presence of a force of gravity, or of some similar force caused by acceleration, is necessary to produce convection, which removes combustion products and brings a supply of oxygen to the fire. Without gravity, a fire rapidly surrounds itself with its own combustion products and non-oxidizing gases from the air, which exclude oxygen and extinguish the fire. Because of this, the risk of fire in a spacecraft is small when it is coasting in inertial flight. This does not apply if oxygen is supplied to the fire by some process other than thermal convection. Fire can be extinguished by removing any one of the elements of the fire tetrahedron. Consider a natural gas flame, such as from a stove-top burner. The fire can be extinguished by any of the following:
 * turning off the gas supply, which removes the fuel source;
 * covering the flame completely, which smothers the flame as the combustion both uses the available oxidizer (the oxygen in the air) and displaces it from the area around the flame with CO2;
 * application of an inert gas such as carbon dioxide, smothering the flame by displacing the available oxidizer;
 * application of water, which removes heat from the fire faster than the fire can produce it (similarly, blowing hard on a flame will displace the heat of the currently burning gas from its fuel source, to the same end); or
 * application of a retardant chemical such as Halon (largely banned in some countries ) to the flame, which retards the chemical reaction itself until the rate of combustion is too slow to maintain the chain reaction.

In contrast, fire is intensified by increasing the overall rate of combustion. Methods to do this include balancing the input of fuel and oxidizer to stoichiometric proportions, increasing fuel and oxidizer input in this balanced mix, increasing the ambient temperature so the fire's own heat is better able to sustain combustion, or providing a catalyst, a non-reactant medium in which the fuel and oxidizer can more readily react.

Flame
A flame is a mixture of reacting gases and solids emitting visible, infrared, and sometimes ultraviolet light, the frequency spectrum of which depends on the chemical composition of the burning material and intermediate reaction products. In many cases, such as the burning of organic matter, for example wood, or the incomplete combustion of gas, incandescent solid particles called soot produce the familiar red-orange glow of "fire". This light has a continuous spectrum. Complete combustion of gas has a dim blue color due to the emission of single-wavelength radiation from various electron transitions in the excited molecules formed in the flame. Usually oxygen is involved, but hydrogen burning in chlorine also produces a flame, producing hydrogen chloride (HCl). Other possible combinations producing flames, amongst many, are fluorine and hydrogen, and hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide. Hydrogen and hydrazine/UDMH flames are similarly pale blue, while burning boron and its compounds, evaluated in mid-20th century as a high energy fuel for jet and rocket engines, emits intense green flame, leading to its informal nickname of "Green Dragon".

The glow of a flame is complex. Black-body radiation is emitted from soot, gas, and fuel particles, though the soot particles are too small to behave like perfect blackbodies. There is also photon emission by de-excited atoms and molecules in the gases. Much of the radiation is emitted in the visible and infrared bands. The color depends on temperature for the black-body radiation, and on chemical makeup for the emission spectra.

The common distribution of a flame under normal gravity conditions depends on convection, as soot tends to rise to the top of a general flame, as in a candle in normal gravity conditions, making it yellow. In micro gravity or zero gravity, such as an environment in outer space, convection no longer occurs, and the flame becomes spherical, with a tendency to become more blue and more efficient (although it may go out if not moved steadily, as the CO2 from combustion does not disperse as readily in micro gravity, and tends to smother the flame). There are several possible explanations for this difference, of which the most likely is that the temperature is sufficiently evenly distributed that soot is not formed and complete combustion occurs. Experiments by NASA reveal that diffusion flames in micro gravity allow more soot to be completely oxidized after they are produced than diffusion flames on Earth, because of a series of mechanisms that behave differently in micro gravity when compared to normal gravity conditions. These discoveries have potential applications in applied science and industry, especially concerning fuel efficiency.

Typical adiabatic temperatures
The adiabatic flame temperature of a given fuel and oxidizer pair is that at which the gases achieve stable combustion.
 * Oxy–dicyanoacetylene 4990 C
 * Oxy–acetylene 3480 C
 * Oxyhydrogen 2800 C
 * Air–acetylene 2534 C
 * Blowtorch (air–MAPP gas) 2200 °C
 * Bunsen burner (air–natural gas) 1300 to 1600 C
 * Candle (air–paraffin) 1000 °C.

Fire science
Fire science is a branch of physical science which includes fire behavior, dynamics, and combustion. Applications of fire science include fire protection, fire investigation, and wildfire management.

Fire ecology
Every natural ecosystem on land has its own fire regime, and the organisms in those ecosystems are adapted to or dependent upon that fire regime. Fire creates a mosaic of different habitat patches, each at a different stage of succession. Different species of plants, animals, and microbes specialize in exploiting a particular stage, and by creating these different types of patches, fire allows a greater number of species to exist within a landscape.

Prevention and protection systems
Wildfire prevention programs around the world may employ techniques such as wildland fire use and prescribed or controlled burns. Wildland fire use refers to any fire of natural causes that is monitored but allowed to burn. Controlled burns are fires ignited by government agencies under less dangerous weather conditions.

Fire fighting services are provided in most developed areas to extinguish or contain uncontrolled fires. Trained firefighters use fire apparatus, water supply resources such as water mains and fire hydrants or they might use A and B class foam depending on what is feeding the fire.

Fire prevention is intended to reduce sources of ignition. Fire prevention also includes education to teach people how to avoid causing fires. Buildings, especially schools and tall buildings, often conduct fire drills to inform and prepare citizens on how to react to a building fire. Purposely starting destructive fires constitutes arson and is a crime in most jurisdictions.

Model building codes require passive fire protection and active fire protection systems to minimize damage resulting from a fire. The most common form of active fire protection is fire sprinklers. To maximize passive fire protection of buildings, building materials and furnishings in most developed countries are tested for fire-resistance, combustibility and flammability. Upholstery, carpeting and plastics used in vehicles and vessels are also tested.

Where fire prevention and fire protection have failed to prevent damage, fire insurance can mitigate the financial impact.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Fire


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FIDE

The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE (  Fédération Internationale des Échecs), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national chess federations and acts as the governing body of international chess competition. FIDE was founded in Paris, France, on July 20, 1924. Its motto is Gens una sumus, Latin for 'We are one Family'. In 1999, FIDE was recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). there are 201 member federations of FIDE.

Role
FIDE's most visible activity is organizing the World Chess Championship since 1948. FIDE also organizes world championships for women, juniors, seniors, and the disabled. Another flagship event is the Chess Olympiad, a biennial chess tournament organized since 1924, in which national teams compete. In alternate years, FIDE also organizes the World Team Championship, in which the best teams from the previous Olympiad compete.

As part of the World Chess Championship cycle, FIDE also organizes the Candidates Tournament, which determines who will challenge the reigning World Champion, and the qualifying tournaments for the Candidates, such as the Chess World Cup, the FIDE Grand Prix, and the FIDE Grand Swiss Tournament 2019.

FIDE is recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as the supreme body responsible for the organization of chess and its championships at global and continental levels. Other tournaments are not overseen directly by FIDE, but they generally observe FIDE rules and regulations. Some national chess organizations such as the US Chess Federation use minor differences to FIDE rules.

FIDE defines the rules of chess, both for individual games (i.e. the board and moves) and for the conduct of international competitions. The international competition rules are the basis for local competitions, although local bodies are allowed to modify these rules to a certain extent. FIDE awards a number of organizational titles, including International Arbiter, which signifies that the recipient is competent and trusted to oversee top-class competitions.

FIDE calculates the Elo ratings of players and awards titles for achievement in competitive play, such as the Grandmaster title. It also awards titles to composers and solvers of chess problems and studies.

FIDE funds and manages outreach programs, such as the Chess for Freedom program and awards such as, since 2020, the Svetozar Gligoric Award for fair play.

Correspondence chess (chess played by post, email or on online servers) is regulated by the International Correspondence Chess Federation, an independent body that cooperates with FIDE where appropriate.

The FIDE budget for 2022 was €12.84 million, an increase from the 2021 budget which was €4 million. Income is primarily from rights to tournaments such as the Olympiad and World Championship, from various fees and commissions, and from corporate sponsorship and donations.

Foundation and early years (up to 1939)
In 1904, L'union Amicale, a French chess association, attempted to establish an international chess federation. In April 1914, an initiative was taken in St. Petersburg, Russia, to form an international chess federation. Another attempt was made in July 1914 during the Mannheim International Chess Tournament. Further efforts temporarily came to an end as a result of the outbreak of World War I. In 1920, another attempt to organize an international federation was made at the Gothenburg Tournament.

Players made the first attempt to produce rules for world championship matches—in 1922, world champion José Raúl Capablanca proposed the "London rules": the first player to win six games outright would win the match; playing sessions would be limited to five hours; the time limit would be 40 moves in 2.5 hours each; the champion would be obliged to defend his title within one year of receiving a challenge from a recognized master; the champion would decide the date of the match; the champion was not obliged to accept a challenge for a purse of less than $10,000 ; 20% of the purse was to be paid to the title holder, with the remainder being divided, 60 percent to the winner of the match, and 40% to the loser; the highest purse bid must be accepted. Alekhine, Bogoljubov, Maróczy, Réti, Rubinstein, Tartakower and Vidmar promptly signed them. The only match played under those rules was Capablanca vs Alekhine in 1927.

In 1922, the Russian master Eugene Znosko-Borovsky, while participating in an international tournament in London, announced that a tournament would be held during the 8th Sports Olympic Games in Paris in 1924 and would be hosted by the French Chess Federation. On July 20, 1924 the participants at the Paris tournament founded FIDE as a kind of players' union. In its early years, FIDE had little power, and it was poorly financed.

FIDE's congresses in 1925 and 1926 expressed a desire to become involved in managing the world championship. FIDE was largely happy with the "London Rules", but claimed that the requirement for a purse of $10,000 was impracticable and called upon Capablanca to come to an agreement with the leading masters to revise the Rules.

FIDE's third congress, in Budapest in 1926, also decided to organize a Chess Olympiad. The invitations were, however, late in being sent, with the result that only four countries participated, and the competition was called the Little Olympiad. The winner was Hungary, followed by Yugoslavia, Romania, and Germany. In 1927, FIDE began organizing the First Chess Olympiad during its 4th Congress in London. The official title of the tournament was the "Tournament of Nations", or "World Team Championship", but "Chess Olympiad" became a more popular title. The event was won by Hungary, with 16 teams competing.

In 1928, FIDE recognized Bogoljubow as "Champion of FIDE" after he won a match against Max Euwe. Alekhine, the reigning world champion, attended part of the 1928 Congress and agreed to place future matches for the world title under the auspices of FIDE, although any match with Capablanca should be under the same conditions as in Buenos Aires, 1927, i.e., including the requirement for a purse of at least $10,000. FIDE accepted this and decided to form a commission to modify the London Rules for future matches, though this commission never met; by the time of the 1929 Congress, a world championship match between Alekhine and Bogoljubow was under way, held neither under the auspices of FIDE nor in accordance with the London Rules.

While negotiating his 1937 World Championship re-match with Alekhine, Euwe proposed that if he retained the title, FIDE should manage the nomination of future challengers and the conduct of championship matches. FIDE had been trying since 1935 to introduce rules on how to select challengers, and its various proposals favored selection by some sort of committee. While they were debating procedures in 1937 and Alekhine and Euwe were preparing for their re-match later that year, the Dutch Chess Federation proposed that a super-tournament (AVRO) of ex-champions and rising stars should be held to select the next challenger. FIDE rejected this proposal and at their second attempt nominated Salo Flohr as the official challenger. Euwe then declared that: if he retained his title against Alekhine he was prepared to meet Flohr in 1940 but he reserved the right to arrange a title match either in 1938 or 1939 with José Raúl Capablanca, who had lost the title to Alekhine in 1927; if Euwe lost his title to Capablanca then FIDE's decision should be followed and Capablanca would have to play Flohr in 1940. Most chess writers and players strongly supported the Dutch super-tournament proposal and opposed the committee processes favored by FIDE. While this confusion went unresolved: Euwe lost his title to Alekhine; the AVRO tournament in 1938 was won by Paul Keres under a tie-breaking rule, with Reuben Fine placed second and Capablanca and Flohr in the bottom places; and the outbreak of World War II in 1939 cut short the controversy. Although competitive chess continued in many countries, including some that were under Nazi occupation, there was no international competition and FIDE was inactive during the war.

Birth of the World Championship challenge cycle
From the time of Emanuel Lasker's defeat of Wilhelm Steinitz in 1894, until 1946, a new World Champion had won the title by defeating the former champion in a match. Alexander Alekhine's death created an interregnum that made the normal procedure impossible. The situation was confused, with many respected players and commentators offering different solutions. FIDE found it difficult to organize the early discussions on how to resolve the interregnum, because problems with money and travel in the aftermath of World War II prevented many countries from sending representatives, most notably the Soviet Union. The shortage of clear information resulted in otherwise responsible magazines publishing rumors and speculation, which only made the situation more confused. See Interregnum of World Chess Champions for more details.

This situation was exacerbated by the Soviet Union having long refused to join FIDE, and by this time it was clear that about half the credible contenders were Soviet citizens. The Soviet Union realized, however, it could not afford to be left out of the discussions regarding the vacant world championship, and in 1947 sent a telegram apologizing for the absence of Soviet representatives and requesting that the USSR be represented in future FIDE Committees.

The eventual solution was similar to FIDE's initial proposal and to a proposal put forward by the Soviet Union (authored by Mikhail Botvinnik). The 1938 AVRO tournament was used as the basis for the 1948 Championship Tournament. The AVRO tournament had brought together the eight players who were, by general acclamation, the best players in the world at the time. Two of the participants at AVRO—Alekhine and former world champion Capablanca—had since died; but FIDE decided that the other six participants at AVRO would play a quadruple round-robin tournament. These players were: Max Euwe (from The Netherlands); Botvinnik, Paul Keres and Salo Flohr (from the Soviet Union); and Reuben Fine and Samuel Reshevsky (from the United States). FIDE soon accepted a Soviet request to substitute Vasily Smyslov for Flohr, and Fine withdrew in order to continue his degree studies in psychiatry, so five players competed, in a quintuple round robin. Botvinnik won, thus becoming world champion, ending the interregnum.

The proposals which led to the 1948 Championship Tournament also specified the procedure by which challengers for the World Championship would be selected in a three-year cycle: countries affiliated with FIDE would send players to Zonal tournaments (the number varied depending on the number of strong players each country had); the players who gained the top places in these would compete in an Interzonal tournament (later split into two, then three tournaments as the number of countries and eligible players increased ); the highest-placed players from the Interzonal would compete in the Candidates Tournament, along with the loser of the previous title match and the runner-up in the previous Candidates Tournament; and the winner of the Candidates played a title match against the champion. From 1950 until 1962 inclusive, the Candidates Tournament was a multi-round round-robin—how and why it was changed are described below.

Bobby Fischer controversies
FIDE found itself embroiled in some controversies relating to the American player Bobby Fischer. The first controversy took place when Fischer alleged that, at the 1962 Candidates Tournament in Curaçao, the Soviet players Tigran Petrosian, Paul Keres and Efim Geller had pre-arranged draws in their games played amongst themselves, and that Viktor Korchnoi, another Soviet player, had been instructed to lose to them (Fischer had placed 4th, well behind Petrosian, Keres and Geller). Grandmaster Yuri Averbakh, a member of the Soviet delegation at the tournament, confirmed in 2002 that Petrosian, Keres and Geller privately agreed to draw their games. FIDE responded by changing the format of Candidates Tournaments from a multi-round round-robin to a series of elimination matches, initially 10–12 games in duration; however, by the 1970s, the Candidates final would be as long as 24 games.

Then, in 1969, Fischer refused to play in the U.S. Championship because of disagreements about the tournament's format and prize fund. Since that event was being treated as a Zonal tournament, Fischer forfeited his right to compete for the right to challenge World Champion Boris Spassky in 1972. Grandmaster Pal Benko agreed to relinquish his qualifying place at the Interzonal in Fischer's favor, and the other participants waived their right to claim the spot. FIDE president Max Euwe interpreted the rules very flexibly to allow Fischer to play in the 1970 Interzonal at Palma de Mallorca, which he won convincingly. Fischer then crushed Mark Taimanov, Bent Larsen (both 6–0) and Tigran Petrosian in the 1971 Candidates Tournament and won the title match with Spassky to become world champion.

After winning the world championship, Fischer criticized the existing championship match format (24 games; the champion retained the title if the match was tied) on the grounds that it encouraged whoever got an early lead to play for draws. While this dispute was going on, Anatoly Karpov won the right to challenge in 1975. Fischer refused to accept any match format other than the one he proposed. Among Fischer's demands was a requirement that the challenger must beat him by at least two games in order to take his title (Fischer proposed a match format in which the first player to win 10 games wins, with draws not counting, but if the result is 9–9 it is considered a tie). The FIDE argued that it was unfair for a challenger to be able to beat the world champion, yet not take his title. Fischer would not back down, and eventually FIDE awarded the title to Karpov by default. Some commentators have questioned whether FIDE president Max Euwe did as much as he could have to prevent Fischer from forfeiting his world title.

Other 1970s controversies
FIDE had a number of conflicts with the Soviet Chess Federation. These conflicts included:
 * The defection of grandmaster Gennadi Sosonko in 1972. The Soviets demanded that Sosonko be excluded from competitive chess, television or any other event that might publicize his defection. FIDE refused, and no Soviet players took part in the 1974 Wijk aan Zee tournament in The Netherlands because Sosonko was playing in it.
 * In 1976 world championship contender Viktor Korchnoi sought political asylum in The Netherlands. In a discussion a few days earlier Euwe told Korchnoi, "...of course you will retain all your rights ..." and later opposed Soviet efforts to prevent Korchnoi from challenging for Anatoly Karpov's title in 1978.
 * FIDE decided to hold the 1976 Chess Olympiad in Israel despite the Soviet Chess Federation announced its boycott of Israel as the site of the Olympiad and the congress because of what it described as Israeli aggression against Arab states.

Rapid expansion of membership
During his period as president of FIDE (1970–1978) Max Euwe strove to increase the number of member countries, and Florencio Campomanes (president 1982–1995) continued this policy, with each member nation receiving one vote. Former world champion Anatoly Karpov later said this was a mixed blessing, as the inclusion of so many small, poor countries led to a "leadership vacuum at the head of the world of chess......" Yuri Averbakh said the presence of so many weak countries made it easy to manipulate decisions.

World Championship, 1983–1985
The events leading to Garry Kasparov's winning the world championship involved FIDE in two controversies. While arranging the Candidates Tournament semi-final matches to be played in 1983, FIDE accepted bids to host Kasparov versus Victor Korchnoi in Pasadena, California. The Soviet Union refused to accept this, either because it feared Kasparov would defect or because it thought Kasparov was the greater threat to reigning champion Anatoly Karpov. Their refusal would have meant that Kasparov forfeited his chance of challenging for the title. FIDE president Florencio Campomanes negotiated with the Soviet Union, and the match was played in London.

In the 1984 world championship match between Karpov and Kasparov the winner was to be the first to win six games. In the first 27 games Karpov gained a 5–0 lead but by the end of the 48th Kasparov had reduced this to 5–3. At this point the match had lasted for 159 days (from September 1984 to February 1985). Then the match was ended without result by Florencio Campomanes, the President of the World Chess Federation, and a new match was announced to start a few months later. The termination was controversial, as both players stated that they preferred the match to continue. Announcing his decision at a press conference, Campomanes cited the health of the players, which had been strained by the length of the match. Kasparov won the second match and became world champion.

World Championship divided, 1993–2006
In 1992, Nigel Short emerged as the official challenger for Kasparov’s world title after winning the Candidates Tournament. FIDE promptly accepted a bid from Manchester, England, to host the 1993 title match, but without consulting Short, as its rules required; Short was traveling to Greece at the time. Upon learning of this, Short reached out to Kasparov, who had harbored distrust for FIDE and its president, Florencio Campomanes, since the abrupt end of his 1984 title match against Anatoly Karpov. Kasparov and Short concluded that FIDE had not secured the best financial deal for them and announced their decision to play under a new organization, the Professional Chess Association (PCA). In response, FIDE stripped Kasparov of his title, removed both Kasparov and Short from the official rating list, and announced a title match between Karpov and Jan Timman, whom Short had defeated in the Candidates Tournament. Both Kasparov and Karpov won their respective matches, both claiming the title of world champion.

By 1994, Kasparov realized that separating from FIDE had been a mistake, as the split in the world championship was unpopular among commercial sponsors and most grandmasters. He began efforts to mend relations with FIDE and supported Campomanes's re-election bid as FIDE president. However, many FIDE delegates viewed Campomanes as corrupt, and he agreed to resign in 1995, provided his successor was Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the president of the Republic of Kalmykia.

Several attempts to reunify the world championship in the following years failed for various reasons, including financial constraints and Kasparov's opposition to any plan requiring him to play in a qualifying series. In 2000, Vladimir Kramnik defeated Kasparov in a match for the now-renamed Braingames World Chess Championship, as the PCA had dissolved by then. Kramnik, like Kasparov, was unwilling to play in a qualifying series and strongly objected to FIDE's attempt to decide the world championship through annual knockout tournaments and to shorten game time limits.

In 2006, a reunification match was held between Kramnik and Veselin Topalov, which Kramnik won amidst a controversy that resulted in one game being awarded to Topalov. However, the split in the world title had lingering effects, as evidenced by FIDE’s complex regulations for the 2007-2009 world championship cycle. FIDE decided to grant Topalov a “fast track” entry into the 2007-2009 cycle due to his inability to compete in the 2007 World Chess Championship Tournament. Additionally, FIDE decided that if Kramnik did not win the 2007 championship tournament, he would play a championship match in 2008 against the winner. This provision came into effect when Viswanathan Anand won the tournament and became the world champion.

IOC recognition
In 1999, FIDE was recognised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Two years later, it introduced the IOC's anti-drugs rules to chess, as part of its campaign for chess to become part of the Olympic Games.

Commercial agreement with Agon and World Chess
In 2012 FIDE entered into a commercial agreement, initially planned to last until 2021, with the company Agon Limited. This company was given rights to organize and commercially exploit the World Chess Championship and the associated events in the World Championship cycle. The first tournament it organized was the London FIDE Grand Prix event in September 2012, followed by the London Candidates Tournament in March 2013, and the Chennai World Chess Championship in November 2013.

Agon subsequently organized the four events in the FIDE Grand Prix 2014–15, the Candidates Tournament in 2014, and the World Chess Championship in 2014.

Agon had been founded in 2012 in Jersey by Andrew Paulson as the sole shareholder. On February 20, 2012, an agreement between Agon and FIDE was made, subject to approval by the 2012 FIDE General Assembly. This approval was forthcoming in September 2012. In October 2014, Agon was sold to its current CEO Ilya Merenzon for the sum of one pound. At the September 2016 FIDE General Assembly, it was resolved that Agon should institute a corporate presence in a locale with more transparency. Merenzon said that they would register in the United Kingdom within a few months. As a result, a new company, World Chess Limited, was registered shortly after, replacing Agon as the rights holder in the agreement with FIDE.

FIDE and Agon/World Chess contract controversy
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov was happy with the agreement on the basis that now FIDE itself did not have to expend resources to find organizers for its premier events. The issue of financial guarantees was also important, though as explained below, these have not always materialized. His estimation of 10–12 million euros to FIDE from the coming cycles has not yet come to fruition either.

The condition that Agon would be the sole organizer of Championship events was disputed originally by principally the Bulgarian Chess Federation, with respect to the Candidates matches for 2012. In early 2014, a purported agreement between Paulson and FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov was leaked, and then published by Chess.com (and others), which allegedly indicated that Paulson was simply a front man with Ilyumzhinov the ultimate benefactor of Agon. In that Chess.com article Malcolm Pein is quoted as having twice been told by Paulson that Ilyuzmhinov owned Agon, and in a New In Chess article Nigel Short asserted he had also been told this personally by Paulson. In response, FIDE's deputy vice president Georgios Makropoulos pointed out that the purported contract was a draft document. The FIDE Ethics Commission ruled in September 2015 that Ilyumzhinov did not violate the FIDE Code of Ethics.

The election of Arkady Dvorkovich and the end of the Ilyumzhinov era
In July 2018, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov was ousted as FIDE President, after having been in office for 23 years, since 1995. Being subjected to US sanctions for his business dealings with the Syrian government, Ilyumzhinov was forced out and did not run for re-election in the 2018 FIDE elections. The Greek Georgios Makropoulos, who had been General Secretary since 1990 and number two in the organization under Kirsan's Presidency, was the first to announce his ticket. He was followed by the Englishman Nigel Short, a world title contender in the World Chess Championship 1993 against Garry Kasparov. The last to announce his candidacy was Arkady Dvorkovich, an economist who had served as Russian deputy prime minister and was also a member of the Supervisory Board of the Russian Chess Federation. Dvorkovich was also one of the chief organizers of the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Dvorkovich was placed in the US Treasury pre-sanctions list in 2018 as a top Russian government employee.

In the elections, held in Batumi (Georgia) in October 2018, Dvorkovich won by 103 votes to 78 against Makropoulos, after Nigel Short withdrew his candidacy at the last minute and expressed his support to the Russian candidate.

After the 2018 FIDE elections and the appointment of a new FIDE President, the new management took regaining control over the World Championship cycle as one of their top priorities. In January 2019, FIDE Director-General Emil Sutovsky announced that a new contract has been signed that continues a scaled-back relationship with World Chess (formerly known as AGON) through 2021. In virtue of this new agreement, FIDE reasserted control over the 2020 Candidates and the World Championship match, which from now on will undergo an open bidding procedure. Agon/World Chess only retained organizational and commercial rights over the FIDE Grand Prix Series, limited until 2021.

At FIDE's general assembly in Chennai, India, in August 2022 Dvorkovich got re-elected by 157 votes to 16 against Ukraine's Andrii Baryshpolets.

Reactions to the Russian invasion of Ukraine
On February 27, 2022, FIDE issued an official statement condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine. As a consequence, Russia and Belarus were forbidden from hosting official FIDE events. The decision to hold the 2022 Chess Olympiad and the 2022 FIDE congress in Moscow was also revoked. The Russian and Belarusian national teams were banned from participating in FIDE tournaments, although individual players could compete if they complied with strict regulations, in which case their federation and flag was replaced with FIDE and its banner.

On March 22, 2022, FIDE decided to issue a six month ban from competing in rated tournaments against Russian grandmaster Sergey Karjakin. Karjakin had posted controversial statements on Twitter in which he declared his support for the invasion of Ukraine and for President Vladimir Putin's characterization of the war as a fight against Nazism. FIDE argued that Karjakin's statements had shed a negative light on chess and on the federation and found that he had violated the FIDE code of ethics. Sergei Shipov, who also publicly commented in favor of Russia, was not sanctioned, because FIDE decided that his statements were less provocative.

Restrictions on transgender players
In August 2023, FIDE implemented a ban on trans women from playing chess in official women's tournaments organised by them, as well as tournaments providing qualification spots to the Women's Chess World Cup. Additionally, they implemented rules stripping trans men of any women's titles they might have earned while competing as women. The regulation affects those who changed their gender identity after being assigned a FIDE identification number.

The French Chess Federation announced that France will not respect the banishment of transgender people, considering the FIDE decision transphobic. A little later, the German Chess Federation said in a statement that they do not exclude transgender women from women's tournaments. They also said that no one should have to experience violence and discrimination. Similar statements were also released by the English, Finnish and US chess federations.

FIDE presidents

 * 1924–1939 Alexander Rueb
 * 1939–1946 🇦🇷 Augusto De Muro
 * 1946–1949 Alexander Rueb
 * 1949–1970 🇸🇪 Folke Rogard
 * 1970–1978 Max Euwe
 * 1978–1982 🇮🇸 Friðrik Ólafsson
 * 1982–1995 Florencio Campomanes
 * 1995–2018 🇷🇺 Kirsan Ilyumzhinov
 * 2018–present 🇷🇺 Arkady Dvorkovich

title: FIDE


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Talk:Fire

"Reaction in case of fire" - Appropiated
Hello. Well, I understand the article is not merely about the physical properties of fire or something so narrow. Having in mind it already mentions things as "Prevention and protection systems" and "History of human control of fire". Please, allow me to improve this article by expanding it. Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scriptir (talk • contribs) 01:53, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

 * Please read WP:NOTGUIDE. "Prevention and protection systems" and "History of human control of fire" are clearly written as, whereas "Reaction in case of fire" is clearly written as a or , which means that it is not appropriate here. Mitch Ames (talk) 02:31, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Okay. I made an attempt to expose a fire situation without making an instruction manual of it, but it seems that I didn't achieve it. Anyway, I think that some of that interesting information would have to appear here. Now I am ready to write a new text about the matter. Please, allow me to publish it for the improvement of Wikipedia and the satisfaction of many readers. Thank you! Scriptir (talk) 02:53, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I suggest that you post a draft here and get feedback before adding it to the article. Mitch Ames (talk) 02:57, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Well, basically:
 * The text will content an introduction about what is an accident with fire, and why it is so dangerous.
 * Next, I would mention the possible scenarios of fire, including major fires, minor fires, particular fires which involve electricity, etc. Different scenarios imply particular reactions. Some part has to be dedicated to the science behind fire extinction.
 * Additionally, some concepts must be explained, as the usage of an "escape route" and its timing, and the differences between fire extinguisers, because not all of them are filled with the same agent, which can be interesting in a general view.
 * I have much information, I could explain it in many ways. Scriptir (talk) 05:49, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I suspect that much detail (as you have previously added) is simply to much for the Fire article, and ought to be elsewhere. In many cases it already is, such as in the articles listed in Fire protection. We have entire articles about: fire types, fire escapes, fire extinguishers, etc. Not everything needs to be in the Fire article. (See also Content forking.) Mitch Ames (talk) 13:18, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

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title: Talk:Fire