Fire in space is very dangerous, but certainly not impossible. Look at the sun if you aren't convinced. NO, WAIT, DON'T!!! Ahh, too late, if only he was reading this message at night...
Well, in any case, fire in space is possible if you have a) combustible materials,
combustible atmosphere, and c) a sufficient source of ignition. The problem with fire in space is that it tends to drastically use up
.
Cracking open a capital ship and setting fire to all the stuff that pours out would be a fearsome spectacle. If the sun hasn't blinded you yet, go watch Starship Troopers (if you are old enough).
On the other hand, for non-Hollywood space fires, you can read about the account of the fire on Mir in the excellent book "Dragonfly". Real fires in space tend to have bubble-shaped flames that snake out in whatever direction the flow of oxygen is coming from. Smoke billows out in massive, choking bubbles. It's an untenable situation.
When Mir caught fire, the cosmonauts made a mad dash for the fire extinguishers. Unfortunately, the firefighting equipment were bolted securely to the wall so that they would not come loose during lift-off, and nobody thought to remove the bolts afterwards.
So, your space station is on fire, your oxygen supply is being consumed by the flames, smoke is everywhere, and in zero gravity you try to pull at a fire extinguisher that is fastened with bolts to the wall.
I imagine a Three Stooges cocoanut sound of the cosmonaut's skull impacting against the fire extinguisher, but I'd also accept an aluminum bat hitting a softball, followed by many curse words in Russian.
