Could evaporated/sucked up oil ignite in the sky from lightning?

This was in one of my friends Facebook posts. Intriguing, could it happen?

A friend of mine was on a yacht delivery in the gulf and reported that the oil is evaporating into the clouds and coming down as oil showers farther inland. My questions is: If there is enough atomized oil in a cloud system could it ignite by a lighting strike?

Although Jeff speaks to the scenario re: oil spill and lightning, it would seem to also answer your question:

Lightning and oil
Could a lightning strike from a hurricane ignite oil from the spill, and the hurricane's winds hurl the flaming oil inland, creating a fiery maelstrom of water, wind, and flame? This would make a great scene in a typical bad Hollywood disaster movie, but it's not going to happen with the universe's current laws of physics. Lightning could set an oil slick on fire, in regions where the oil is most dense and very fresh. About 50-70% of the evaporation of oil's most flammable volatile compounds occurs in the first 12 hours after release, so fresh oil is the most likely to ignite. However, the winds of a hurricane are so fierce that any surface oil slick of flaming oil would quickly be disrupted and doused by wave action and sea spray. Heavy rain would further dampen any lightning-caused oil slick fires.

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1492&tstamp=&page=26

Since there have been, and still are, other spills with oil evaporation around the globe (think off the coast of Africa), since this has yet to happen after all these years, chances are it would not occur.

thanks

But, no.

We humans will breathe all the fumes in and clean the air with our lungs.

The funny would be epic.

http://www.raptureready.com/rap2.html

If only we could go back to the early days of the Clinton years! :rofl:

Liberalism is only at a 4. We're not working hard enough!!

And why is Inflation at 3?? Other than Repukes inflated thingies, I can't think of anything else.

:wtf:

Why do you even bother?

:rofl: :evilgrin:

I asked, if all that oil that is going ashore and sitting in the marshes got struck by lightening what would happen. Would it set the whole wetlands on fire.

from cows, people, horses, dogs, and squirrels.

...throw in a good thunderstorm along with it, and call it a "napalmcaine" :scared:

They could certainly ignite if the methane were sufficiently concentrated.

Guess we'll just have to wait and watch to find out.

would be soooo coooool.

There's also no such things as ghosts.

Every meteorologist I've read talking about things has said that it would be nearly impossible because the volatile chemicals that do evaporate are not solids, so "oil" wouldn't be what was falling.

But even the best educated guesses about what can happen aren't nearly the same as seeing it happen....

because even though it stinks like hell, there really isn't enough of a fuel/oxygen mixture to burn efficiently.

Lightning could, however, ignite fouled marshland.