Stupidity: Mike Roark is supposed to be the director of an agency that is in charge of coordinating all the resources of the city in the event of a natural disaster, but he doesn't know what a "geological event" is, not to mention magma?

Volcano (1997)
1 stupidity
Directed by: Mick Jackson
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Don Cheadle, Anne Heche, Gaby Hoffmann
Factual error: When lava engulfs the streets, aluminum light poles do not melt (it has a melting point of 1,212° Fahrenheit), yet entire vehicles with steel frames melt into the flow (steel melts at 2,750° Fahrenheit). Lava reaches around 2,000°.
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.
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