 Quote by Moogie
Why don't things 'burn' in fluorine or nitrogen?
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They do! Fluorine is way more reactive than oxygen. It is so reactive that it will happily burn hydrocarbons at room temperature (i.e. spontaneously). Luckily it's not a common as free oxygen.
As for N, it really likes to bond with itself. And many explosives have N as a principle component because it releases a lot of energy when it converts back to N2.