My first Spontaneous Combustion

[Palmetto Home and Deck]

As my helper and I were applying Wood Tux to an IPE deck today I noticed that I smelled something burning. We stopped and looked at the house, around the house, looked into the woods behind the house, checked out the air conditioner and everywhere else we could think of, but we could not see any signs of any thing burning yet we kept smelling something that smelled like paper or a rag burning.

We were putting down the Wood Tux on four or five IPE boards at a time then we would go back after a few minutes and wipe the boards down with a rag. As the rags become saturated we tossed them over the side of the deck onto the pine needles next to the deck. My helper asked if I wanted him to gather the rags up and put them in a trash bag or in a box. I told him that could cause a spontaneous combustion and we would go around and pick up the rags and put them in a bucket of water as soon as we were finished and was cleaning up.

Well, that almost turned out to be a disaster. Still smelling something burning and standing almost on top of one of the saturated rags my helper reached down and picked up the rag. It turned out that it was smoldering underneath the bottom of it and burst into flames when the air hit it. Also the pine needles caught on fire when they were exposed to the air, but we quickly stomped them out.

I have heard of fires starting from oily rags, but I thought they had to be kind of heaped or piled up together in a trash can or plastic bag or something. The instructions on the side of the Wood Tux pail does say dispose of or put any saturated rags in a bucket of water, but I never thought about a single rag lying out in the open and especially within twenty minutes time could ignite like that. (Russel is probable saying I tried to tell you so)

Well, it didn't take us long to find a bucket and fill it with water to put our rags in and as soon as a rag become saturated we took it straight to the water bucket from then on.

The scariest thing to me is how easy it would be to have a real disaster if someone just tossed their rags in a trash can or bag and left it next to the house or even put the rags in their truck thinking they were going straight to the trash dump.

Taking that lesson learned today, we checked, double checked, and triple checked all around that house for any stain saturated rags that may have been missed before we left for the day.

[jetstream1]

I know when I was up that way it was hot out....Good thing you found it

[MMI Enterprises]

Plenty of us have had close calls or actual fires so don't feel alone..
But please Len can you share what you were thinking in throwing oily rags onto pine needles? That's pretty brave act.
Aside from throwing fuel onto more fuel, I don't get the whole using rags to wipe with thing. Only reason I bring rags is to clean up myself or mistakes.
Small fire can (or metal trash can) and extinguisher should be mandatory on every job that uses oil stains. Hey check it out.. I just thought of a viable secondary use for ArmClark's stain cans..

[RPetry]

Len,

Good thing you caught the smoldering rag in time. There are wood companies here on TGS that have lost trucks to spontaneous combustion. One came close to losing their home to fire due to stain soaked tarps.

Not all oils are the same. Check the, I think it is flash point, on the MSDS sheet. The lower the temp, the more susceptible to fire problems.

Hey check it out.. I just thought of a viable secondary use for ArmClark's stain cans..

Hah! Good call.

[Beth n Rod]

Take the precautions no matter how silly it feels. If you don't, the day you ignore it will be the day it may happen to you. It happens to everyone, it doesn't discriminate, Pro's included. Be safe!!!

Beth

[Beth n Rod]

BTW - oily rags and tarps are not the only cause for this. There are other ways spontaneous combustion can occur. How many of you sand wood? How many of you consider the sawdust?

Beth

[YVPW]

That was a close call. My truck burnt to the ground in March of 2007. I had some Wood Tux stain soaked drop cloths in the back. I had delayed getting water on them, and then had forgotten later on in the day.

I've never really told the whole story of what happened that day. So I'll share something. My wife's sister had a dream the night before that something bad was gonna happen. She had told my wifes parents about it. By the way our whole family lives a Christian life. Next day I come home from a job, my helper stays at my house for a while relaxing and getting something to eat. My truck is parked just outside my garage door. Later on that evening my helper says he needs to run uptown to get something. Just so happens his car wasn't at my house(he just lives down the road too). So he had to borrow my truck. About 30 minutes later we get a call saying the truck is on fire next to the Interstate. By the time I get to the scene there had been 3 explosions from the gas tank and solvents. My helper said he looked in the rear view mirrow and saw the fire blazing. He tried to put it out but there was so much flammable stuff on the truck that there wasn't anything he could do about it. Traffic was backed up for miles, they didn't know what type of chemicals I had on the truck. It burnt the truck to the ground. It's amazing how everything worked out so that the truck would be gone from my house. That truck would have burnt my house down. Yeshua saved my home.

[MMI Enterprises]

Regardless if Yeshua had anything to do with saving the house I would bet that the air flow while going down the hwy didn't help matters.

[RPetry]

Jason,

Holy Smokes! You make it 2 wood contractors that I know of that came close to losing their homes due to stain - spontaneous combustion.

Truck fires can be more than an insurance and operational nightmare. Jack Kramer had the NJ Dept. of Environmental Protection all over him for hazmat until he could produce MSDS sheets for the products in his torched truck.

[MMI Enterprises]

When I seen smoke one time I whipped the rig into a industrial complex and bummed a waterhose..

[Douglas Hicks]

I have only seen spontaneous combustion once. The local school gym floor was being refinished. the floor guys went on a lunch break, leaving hte rags in a pile, next to the varnish cans. We had 4 or 5 departments show up on mutual aid. The smoke was visible 30 miles away. We were out so long, the local fuel distributor sent a fuel truck to fuel the fire trucks. Of course the SH I use on hoods is not combustable, but the S/S polish rags get hung up to dry. I also hang the rags used to clean up the fuel spills.

When you get a fire extinguihser, at a minumum, get a 2A10BC. Do not get an extinguisher with a plastic valve, get a commercail brand. I like Amerex, as we are a distributor of their products.

[YVPW]

Kevin, the wind just sped up the process. That truck was gonna burn the house down that evening or night. I'm sure we would have escaped just fine, but the fire was gonna blaze that night. My wifes mom had been in prayer and fasting that day after hearing the news from my wifes sister. Those prayers to the name above every name Yeshua the Messiah are what saved my house.