A 16-year-old girl has developed an acoustic fire extinguisher that uses sound waves to put out fires in seconds.

A 16-year-old female student in Mexico has developed an 'acoustic fire extinguisher' that uses sound waves to put out fires.

16-year-old Mexican student creates an acoustic fire extinguisher that uses sound waves to put out fires in seconds | Upsocl

https://www.upsocl.com/en/16-year-old-mexican-student-creates-an-acoustic-fire-extinguisher-that-uses-sound-waves-to-put-out-fires-in-seconds/

Angela Calime Venegas Hernandez, a 16-year-old student at CETIS 78, a technical high school in Altamira, Tamaulipas, Mexico, came up with the idea of extinguishing a candle flame using only sound, without blowing on it or using water. Hernandez then built a device using a 12-volt battery, a frequency generator, and a speaker that emits 30 pulses per second.

A scientific review of acoustic fire suppression systems published in 2025 suggests that low-frequency sound, particularly sound waves in the 40-80 Hz range confirmed in various experiments, can cause airflow turbulence that destabilizes combustion. Another study has shown that when focused acoustic pulses reach the required intensity above a fire, the sound waves create movement and turbulence in the air around the flames, altering the combustion zone and increasing heat loss, thus extinguishing flames from a distance.

Developed as a prototype, 'Vortex Tech' elevates these scientific principles into a project with practical applications. Vortex Tech can extinguish fires in 5 to 8 seconds using sound wave vibrations, and Hernandez reports that he has conducted over 100 tests, confirming its effectiveness on wood, flammable liquids, cooking oil, and electronic devices.

Because Vortex Tech extinguishes fires using only sound waves, there is no concern about residue such as soaking the surrounding area or releasing pollutants. Furthermore, it is designed to be completely harmless to the user.

Hernandez's project won first place in the high school division of 'ExpoCiencias Tamaulipas 2025,' a science and technology competition held in Tamaulipas state. It is alsoregistered as an 'applied science' project with the Latin American Association for Applied Science and Technology (solacyt) .

However, Vortex Tech is still an experimental technology and has only been successful in extinguishing controlled flames and small-scale fires. In real fires, the materials, temperatures, scale, and ventilation conditions vary greatly, so a system that extinguishes fires using only sound waves needs further improvement. Furthermore, it has been warned that the ability to extinguish fires with sound waves is due to the action of specific low frequencies, and that trying to put out a fire by making loud noises in front of it is pointless.