Plot hole: When they are trying to find a way to stop the lava from going in to the museum, Tommy Lee Jones has an idea to push a bus up against the museum to divert the lava. The plan works but the lava does not melt the bus like it melted Tommy Lee Jones' car or the fire truck. Even though the bus melts later in the movie, it doesn't melt it instantly like it did with the fire truck.
Volcano (1997)
1 plot hole
Directed by: Mick Jackson
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Don Cheadle, Anne Heche, Gaby Hoffmann
Continuity mistake: When Amy Barnes and Rachel are in the tunnel trying to find out what happened, Rachel falls in the crack of the tunnel, and Amy is thrown back. When it cuts to a different view, Amy Barnes falls or is thrown backwards, yet in the following shot when her hand slips from Rachel's, she falls back again. Also, when she is thrown back by the force, she is thrown back some distance, yet when the smoke subsides she is only about 1 or 2 feet from the crack in the tunnel. (00:27:35)
Amy: Sometimes magma can find one of those fissures and rise up through it.
Roark: What's magma?
Rachel: Lava.
Roark: Lava? Right here in L.A?
Amy: It is one of the possibilities.
Roark: We have a history of that here in the downtown area?
Rachel: Paricutin... 1943, a Mexican farmer sees smoke coming out of the middle of his cornfield. A week later there's a volcano a thousand feet high. There's no history of anything until it happens. Then there is.
Trivia: The lava was primarily made of methylcellulose, the thickening agent used in fast-food milkshakes, and the ash was made mostly of ground newspaper.
Question: Does the art museum catch fire from the lava even though they tried to stop it by putting a bus against it?
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Answer: Lava is extremely hot. It heats the air above and around it to such a degree that it can reach the flash point of various items.
Greg Dwyer