system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Would spraying boiling water over a fire put it out as effectively as room temp water?

Was thinking about sweating and water evaporating and somehow my mind stumbled on this question. I can think of a few different reasons why this may just be a bad question but figured I'd ask it anyway! Thought process here is: I guess pouring water on a fire cools it down both by direct heat transfer (water is cooler than whatever it is that's on fire) and by taking energy from the fire and evaporating (maybe this isn't accurate and my understanding of evaporation [and possibly also fire] is shitty?). So if water is already at or near boiling point, it needs less energy to evaporate and doesn't take as much from the fire?
gpt
The main mechanism of water to put out a fire is via evaporation. There are two reasons for this:

1) The latent heat of vaporization--converting water from liquid to gas at 100 degrees Celsius--requires about 2.2MJ per kg. That means, every kilogram of water on the fire will absorb 2.2MJ of energy from the fire, helping to reduce its temperature. This all happens at 100 degrees. The water vapor doesn't begin to rise in temperature until all of that energy is absorbed. The heat capacity of liquid water is around 4.2 kJ/(kg K). Almost 500 times less than what it takes to convert to steam. 

2) Water Vapor is much less dense than liquid water. This expansion will displace oxygen in the region of the fire and retard the flame through oxygen starvation.

So to answer the question, using boiling water would do just as good a job putting out a fire (that is able to be put out with water) as room temperature water.

Of course, never use water to try and extinguish certain chemical or electrical fires. It'll just make things worse.