Fire can be used to fight forest fires, albeit with a certain amount of risk. A controlled burn of a strip of forest will create a barrier to an oncoming forest fire as it will use up all the available fuel.
Remember that one dude in Australia who back-burned around his house and ended up the only intact structure for miles during the bad fires a few yeas ago?
oh wow its real
Yeah, we do it a decent amount here, in one way or another
Remember that one dude in Australia who back-burned around his house and ended up the only intact structure for miles during the bad fires a few yeas ago?
Sometimes you also do it in urban environments, though normally you'd just chop down the surrounding houses. It's pretty wild.
High explosives are used to put out oil well fires. Not sure what the theory is there, though.
My guess would be the shockwave disperses the fuel and deprives it of oxygen, like blowing out a really really big candle.