Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-28189972-20161117073343/@comment-10390252-20161117114225

I'm pretty sure that Cinder's semblance is Thermal Manipulation - she can heat up any object. However, I bet that it is fairly short-ranged (in contact to or very near to her skin) because air is fairly efficient at dispersing heat spikes. So, I think she uses the Burn Dust thread in her clothes to project it further (sort of like using using magnetic constrictors to accelerate and narrow the path of projectiles in a mass accelerator). She also occasionally uses obsidan 'blanks' out of which to create weapons or projectiles using her semblance.

Since gaining Maiden powers, she can apparently 'turbo boost' the effect, enabling her to literally melt dust and other particulates in the air into weapons.