Quote Originally Posted by Grey McBannert View Post
Fission basics.

The bit where they talk about a "fission candle" effect is about halfway down the page, in the paragraph that begins "If you have ever tried to blow out a self-lighting birthday candle..."
That page is really poorly edited as to spelling and technical content. Using it as an informative source for nuclear reactions or accurate history would be a bad choice.

Tungsten forming a fission candle is not particularly well explained by that page, but may be better explained by mentioning that Tungsten has the second highest melting point of any element, implying that it can be heated hot enough [before it melts] that it would ignite many things that may be in close proximity. Should the atmosphere ignite around Tungsten hot enough to be incandescent, certainly a circulating air cell might form to feed fresh air to the tungsten rapidly.

A better fission candle explanation would be nice.