Upper Peninsula Trip #2: The Pop Can

Here's an interesting question.  Does a pop can melt in a campfire?  This was a question that popped up while making a campfire on our recent trip to the Upper Peninsula.  My initial response at the time was no, but upon looking it up, I was wrong.  Well, I'll say that I was both right and wrong.  Melting aluminum depends on temperature.  The melting point of aluminum is about 1150 degrees Fahrenheit.  If your fire is small and doesn't have a bed of hot coals, the temperature will not reach 1150 degrees.  If your fire, however, has been going consistently for a couple of hours, you'll get a nice bed of hot coals and the temperature will be significantly higher.

There was a leftover aluminum can in the fire pit when we arrived, so we tossed it in one night and it wasn't there the next day!