For a fire to ignite, three factors are needed: heat, fuel and oxygen.

Once these
three components combine, it results to a chemical reaction that creates the flame.
These three elements, together with the chain reaction, makes up the fire
tetrahedron. The absence of any of these factors will not complete the fire
tetrahedron.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) investigated the interactions
of acoustics waves with flames, in a parallel study to electric and electromagnetic
interactions. The interaction between sound and flames was first reported by John
Leconte in 1858, who noted that fames within an orchestral hall respond to beats
within music.

DARPA discovered that the flames can be manipulated with physical forces such as
sound frequency. The acoustic field produced from a specific low frequency
increases the air velocity and results to dwindling of the flame boundary layer
where combustion occurs. Furthermore, the acoustic field leads to higher fuel
vaporization, which widens the flame, but also drops the overall flame temperature.
As the same amount of heat is spread over a larger area, combustion is disrupted
(DARPA, 2012).

This discovery gained attention and led to further experiments and development of
the theory. One of the most recent is the work of two engineering students from
George Mason University. The design project made use of low frequency acoustic
waves to contain a fire. Aside from DARPAs theory, they also used scientific
principles from physics. The Ideal Gas Law states that the Pressure times Volume is
equal to the constants n, the substance of gas and R, the universal gas constant
multiplied by temperature (PV=nRT).
Therefore, when the pressure waves are being directed at the source of a flame, it
will decrease the pressure at the source, which in turn will decrease the
temperature of the flame (Seth Robertson, Viet Tran and Prof. Brian Mark, 2014-
2015). They were able to build a handheld fire extinguisher but with a limited
range. DARPAs discovery showed a lot of potential but still needs a lot of
improvement