DescentBB

3 wood sealer cans stuffed with sealer soaked paper towels and rags. This is what they look like after sitting in the sun, with no lids installed, on a 65 F degree day. The one on the left ignited by itself first and then the other 2 cooked off soon after. I kept smelling something burning for over a half an hour while I was outside working. Finally saw that the stupid cans were on fire!

They have a warning on the can to soak any rags in water before tossing them in the trash due to a potential fire hazard. Well, I stuffed all my used rags and towels in the cans and set them in an area far from any combustibles, hoping the solvents would evaporate first before I put water in and sealed them up. Well, the stuff evaporated alright!

But I have to say, this stuff is a very good wood sealer though. Nice and oily.

I think your cans spontaneously SCIENCE'd.

65 degrees is a fatal temperature. Where the hell do you live? In the middle of the Sahara?

65 is Farenheit. I know, stupid system, it's not even based on a common substance like water. I don't think it's based on anything. But that's what you get from these Imperials -- I mean Americans .

Mobius wrote:65 degrees is a fatal temperature. Where the hell do you live? In the middle of the Sahara?

:fixed:

i'd say there was some ignition source nearby. They didn't auto-ignite at only 18C, that's for sure.
(On that note, last night out my window I saw a huge-ass shooting star burn down through the sky, i literally stood up and waited for the impact blast wave (but nope). Fires can come from weird places)

Unless there was some kinda freak-reflection going on with the shiny containers and sunlight, and it heated up to the self-ignition temp that way. I've heard of bush fires starting on their own from bottles or aluminium cans in this manner.

I did a fire repair from basically the same thing. Homeowners had left a huge potted tree on the back deck, right beside the house. Well, the tree died and evntually it completely dreid out. During the summer heat, up around 100 F I guess, the dang thing caught fire. Really all it did was melt about a 10X10 area of vinyl siding but when the fire department got there they ripped a 10x10 hole in the wall

roid wrote:i'd say there was some ignition source nearby. They didn't auto-ignite at only 18C, that's for sure.

nope, it's a chemical reaction. The cans could of been inside a house and they'd still of ignited.

woodchip wrote:

roid wrote:i'd say there was some ignition source nearby. They didn't auto-ignite at only 18C, that's for sure.

nope, it's a chemical reaction. The cans could of been inside a house and they'd still of ignited.

hmm, but what chemical reaction specifically? I mean, do they ever ignite when the can lid is on? That's what i'm curious about. It requries something in air? Is it something in the material of the rags? i'd really like to know what the name of this process is that can heat up these things enough to cause ignition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_combustion hmmm, wish i understood this chemistry stuff better.

It's much easier to explain (and harder to rule out) via a stray freak ignition source , so that's what i've always just assumed was the most likely explanation. I guess no-one's really explained the processes of spontaneous combustion in enough detail for me to see it as a real thing, it's always been somewhat esoteric and wishy washy "this could happen then that could happen maybe". know what i'm sayin?
maybe this thread will be informative

edit: wooo... mold? weird. Man i gotta get me a chemistry kit or something, lrn 2 redox.

Oil Seeds and oil-seed products
Moisture is a critical factor in self-heating of these materials. Typically, storage at 9-14% moisture is commonly satisfactory, but limits are established for each individual variety of oil seed. In the presence of excess moisture, but at levels below the required amount for germinating the seed, the activity of mold fungi is a likely candidate. This has been established for flax and sunflower seeds, as well as soy beans. Many of the oil seeds generate oils that are self-heating. Palm kernels, rape seed and cotton seed have also been studied

At least when it comes to oil-soaked rags, the process at work seems to be oxidation. You have to get into a bit of chemistry to understand how oxidation works, but it's a very common type of chemical reaction, with rusting iron or spoiling fruit probably being the most familiar examples. Basically, this oxidation is an exothermic reaction, meaning that it produces excess heat as it occurs. In certain substances, like those oil-soaked rags, the heat produced can be significant enough that it speeds up the oxidation reaction...which produces more heat, which speeds things up even more, and the positive feedback loop continues until the substance's temperature passes its ignition point. Then *POOF*, instant fire. The same principle can occur in large piles of mulch or manure, except in those cases the heat production is caused by bacteria/fungi decomposing the organic material.

when I use paint thinners or wiping stains in the shop I drape them over the edge of something until they are completely dried out. Never ever clump them up in any type if container. Epoxy is another exothermic material. Mix too much of the hardening agent with the 2nd part and watch how fast it will heat up.

Oscar Leroy applies for a job blowing up a barn.
[youtube]fka-kSzEl40[/youtube]

woodchip wrote:nope, it's a chemical reaction. The cans could of been inside a house and they'd still of ignited.

grammar nazi time.

I see this more and more it seems (I'm not just pickin' on you, woody; it just that you have a twofer here). "could of" is supposed to be "could've", a contraction of "could have". See here. Similarly, "they'd still of" should be "they'd still have", contracting from "they would still have", which could equally have been written "they still would've", but not "they still would of".

There now, all of you. Run along. You may now return to your regularly scheduled thread.

It's basically the substance is unstable, creating more and more friction within itself, till it finally burns itself up

dissent wrote: grammar nazi time.

I see this more and more it seems (I'm not just pickin' on you, woody; it just that you have a twofer here). "could of" is supposed to be "could've", a contraction of "could have". See here. Similarly, "they'd still of" should be "they'd still have", contracting from "they would still have", which could equally have been written "they still would've", but not "they still would of"...

That gets to me too. Mostly because if people were actually thinking about the words they were writing instead of just writing them automatically, it would be very clear how little sense it makes.

roid wrote:i'd say there was some ignition source nearby. They didn't auto-ignite at only 18C, that's for sure.
(On that note, last night out my window I saw a huge-ass shooting star burn down through the sky, i literally stood up and waited for the impact blast wave (but nope). Fires can come from weird places)

Unless there was some kinda freak-reflection going on with the shiny containers and sunlight, and it heated up to the self-ignition temp that way. I've heard of bush fires starting on their own from bottles or aluminium cans in this manner.

No, one of them started first, by itself, the one on the left that's burned the most. Kind of surprised me too. I'd never actually seen spontaneous combustion occur. The other 2 were sitting right next to the first one, so maybe those caught fire from the heat or some flying embers from the one already burning. They were burning for at least a half an hour before I saw what was going on. Plus, the cans were sitting in the sun, so that may have helped things fire up too.

They do have warnings on the cans to soak all used rags in water before disposing of in the trash. I guess it's a good warning to heed.

In another instance of unintended fire rekindling, I had a small wood stove that was used to heat the house in winter. When the fire had burned out overnight, I used to put the ashes in a metal bucket every morning and store them on the brick heat shield the stove was sitting on, to make sure they were dead. They would then be put into the trash on trash day, so they accumulated for over a week one time. One night, I walked downstairs in the dark and saw a faint glow. The ash in the can was actually glowing, still burning, even though they had felt cold several nights before. The can was very hot! I had to take it outside and douse it with water.

I've heard of idiots putting ashes in paper bags and storing them on a porch or in a garage to throw out. One apartment actually caught fire in Portland because they assumed the ashes were dead. Set the whole unit and the one next door on fire. Ouch! The lesson kiddies, don't assume the ashes from a fireplace or wood stove are dead the next day or two after the fire goes out.

Smokey the Bear would be proud.

I've seen this happen when I was a child maybe 4 years old, just happened to be walking by a can of linseed oil with a rag in it and noticed it started to smoke then "poof" it was on fire. Ran to my Father to have him put it out. That was inside the house and could have been a bad situation.

Another time I saw a kerosene lamp with older kerosene in it spontaneously ignite at -45 C in our cabin. Older kerosene burns like jet fuel and gels as it gets older and it starts reacting with the material in the wick.

We had no electricity there and what I saw happen was a tiny blue white flame had formed in the middle of the wick just above the pool of kerosene, then a huge yellow/blue flame whoomphed out the top of the glass cover as the vapors ignited. Not a match was set anywhere, perhaps static electricity set it off... but it was definitely spontaneous combustion and quite dramatic.

tunnelcat wrote:

roid wrote:i'd say there was some ignition source nearby. They didn't auto-ignite at only 18C, that's for sure.
(On that note, last night out my window I saw a huge-ass shooting star burn down through the sky, i literally stood up and waited for the impact blast wave (but nope). Fires can come from weird places)

Unless there was some kinda freak-reflection going on with the shiny containers and sunlight, and it heated up to the self-ignition temp that way. I've heard of bush fires starting on their own from bottles or aluminium cans in this manner.

No, one of them started first, by itself, the one on the left that's burned the most. Kind of surprised me too. I'd never actually seen spontaneous combustion occur. The other 2 were sitting right next to the first one, so maybe those caught fire from the heat or some flying embers from the one already burning. They were burning for at least a half an hour before I saw what was going on. Plus, the cans were sitting in the sun, so that may have helped things fire up too.

They do have warnings on the cans to soak all used rags in water before disposing of in the trash. I guess it's a good warning to heed.

In another instance of unintended fire rekindling, I had a small wood stove that was used to heat the house in winter. When the fire had burned out overnight, I used to put the ashes in a metal bucket every morning and store them on the brick heat shield the stove was sitting on, to make sure they were dead. They would then be put into the trash on trash day, so they accumulated for over a week one time. One night, I walked downstairs in the dark and saw a faint glow. The ash in the can was actually glowing, still burning, even though they had felt cold several nights before. The can was very hot! I had to take it outside and douse it with water.

I've heard of idiots putting ashes in paper bags and storing them on a porch or in a garage to throw out. One apartment actually caught fire in Portland because they assumed the ashes were dead. Set the whole unit and the one next door on fire. Ouch! The lesson kiddies, don't assume the ashes from a fireplace or wood stove are dead the next day or two after the fire goes out.

I have a paper bag of ashes from the wood burner sitting in the house for well over a year. No flames yet

I don't even wanna discuss wood-burning stoves . I couldn't count the amount of trees we felled and cut up. We welded a log trailer up from plans in Mother Earth News back when it was useful. The neck retracted into itself to amke it abot 10 feet long, but you could extend the tongue and carry 24' long logs with it. Hehe, we'd go right beside I-20 and drop one, then come back about 3-4 days later. I started with a sledge and wood grenade, moved up to maul, then graduated to axe . Good memories actually except for the cold mornings .

flip wrote:I don't even wanna discuss wood-burning stoves . I couldn't count the amount of trees we felled and cut up. We welded a log trailer up from plans in Mother Earth News back when it was useful. The neck retracted into itself to amke it abot 10 feet long, but you could extend the tongue and carry 24' long logs with it. Hehe, we'd go right beside I-20 and drop one, then come back about 3-4 days later. I started with a sledge and wood grenade, moved up to maul, then graduated to axe . Good memories actually except for the cold mornings .

That brings back a few memories. When we lived in Washington, we owned a large wooded lot. The winters were a little windy and invariably a few trees blew down every winter. There was that little wood stove in the living room, so we decided to cut and split our own wood. There was plenty every spring.

Well, that led to getting a chainsaw and log peavey, then a sledge and some wedges, then an axe and then a maul. We soon found out we hated Maple and loved Alder, for two simple reasons, knots and hardness. Specifically the lack of knots in Alder and the preponderance of knots in Maple. And Maple is effing hard! Gawd Maple burned nice and long though, but it was a real bear to split by hand.

At my previous house we used a wood stove for the primary heating in winter, the furnace was a hot water baseboard setup. The wood stove heat was plain unbeatable, its quiet, and really warms the house to the core and you get to watch it the fire through its window to boot. The baseboard heat is pretty nice too but does make it hard to put furniture along the walls where it is. In-floor heating is really the ideal system, but its hard to build and maintain so its pretty rare.

We burned a lot of oak, which we cut and split ourselves. Oak is pretty nice, it burns for a long time, puts out a lot of heat, and as long as it is dry it burns very cleanly.

At the house I am in now the heat is forced air which I hate, its noisy and takes forever to really warm the house up (even though this is a more efficient house than the previous one).

cans that sit like that with no lid on that do NOT spontaneously ignite. there had to be an ignition source nearby, either external (more likely) or internal (not very likely)

Then why is this warning on the can.

"CLEAN UP
Tools and equipment should be cleaned with paint thinner. Soak oily rags, clothes, or any application materials in water after use to avoid spontaneous combustion. After soaking in water, rags and applicators must be allowed to air dry away from any source of ignition."

http://preservaproducts.com/wd-apply.html

that's a good question. It's kind of weird that the warning label says spontaneous combustion in the sentence advising people to soak rags in water, and in the next sentence it says to keep away from sources of ignition after the rags dried.

if it does spontaneously ignite, wouldn't it be a risk even after it's dried out? What has changed? Because as far as I know, there's nothing water soluble in wood staining. it's all solvent/oil based, and that doesn't mix with water.

Well as a guy who as worked as a floor installer and floor refinisher I notice the industry has been moving to water based stains. Even the finishing coat the used to be polyurethane finish are becoming water base which have less of a risk of spontaneously combustion, but even the dust from sanding older floors can and will spontaneously combust because of the oils. Even without oils present sawdust can also combust spontaneously.

This might help also

http://www.tcforensic.com.au/docs/uts/essay6.pdf

I've seen a pile of leaves/grass from a bagging mower start to smolder just sitting for a couple weeks. (Keep in mind it was a 10 foot tall pile with a 20 foot by 30 foot base, the accumulated leaves from a rather large park.)

Ferno wrote:that's a good question. It's kind of weird that the warning label says spontaneous combustion in the sentence advising people to soak rags in water, and in the next sentence it says to keep away from sources of ignition after the rags dried.

if it does spontaneously ignite, wouldn't it be a risk even after it's dried out? What has changed? Because as far as I know, there's nothing water soluble in wood staining. it's all solvent/oil based, and that doesn't mix with water.

Once the rags dried out, I'd assume that the oxidation reaction contributing the heat in the first place would occur at a greatly-reduced rate, if not stop it completely. Even putting aside soaking the rags in water, the very act of spreading them out flat to dry would help alleviate heat build-up.

tunnelcat wrote:

flip wrote:I don't even wanna discuss wood-burning stoves . I couldn't count the amount of trees we felled and cut up. We welded a log trailer up from plans in Mother Earth News back when it was useful. The neck retracted into itself to amke it abot 10 feet long, but you could extend the tongue and carry 24' long logs with it. Hehe, we'd go right beside I-20 and drop one, then come back about 3-4 days later. I started with a sledge and wood grenade, moved up to maul, then graduated to axe . Good memories actually except for the cold mornings .

That brings back a few memories. When we lived in Washington, we owned a large wooded lot. The winters were a little windy and invariably a few trees blew down every winter. There was that little wood stove in the living room, so we decided to cut and split our own wood. There was plenty every spring.

Well, that led to getting a chainsaw and log peavey, then a sledge and some wedges, then an axe and then a maul. We soon found out we hated Maple and loved Alder, for two simple reasons, knots and hardness. Specifically the lack of knots in Alder and the preponderance of knots in Maple. And Maple is effing hard! Gawd Maple burned nice and long though, but it was a real bear to split by hand.

Yeah Axe is best. Break the circle at the edge and then start chopping wedges out. I've never split maple that I can remember but I'm pretty sure twisted hickory is the worse . You could lose a maul, wood grenade and 2 wedges in one of those things

Krom wrote:At my previous house we used a wood stove for the primary heating in winter, the furnace was a hot water baseboard setup. The wood stove heat was plain unbeatable, its quiet, and really warms the house to the core and you get to watch it the fire through its window to boot. The baseboard heat is pretty nice too but does make it hard to put furniture along the walls where it is. In-floor heating is really the ideal system, but its hard to build and maintain so its pretty rare.

We burned a lot of oak, which we cut and split ourselves. Oak is pretty nice, it burns for a long time, puts out a lot of heat, and as long as it is dry it burns very cleanly.

At the house I am in now the heat is forced air which I hate, its noisy and takes forever to really warm the house up (even though this is a more efficient house than the previous one).

Yeah, this particular house had these dipsh*t electric wall heaters that were absolute junk. They had little squirrel cage fans that invariably rattled and squeaked as they spun. The motor bearings had to be constantly maintained and lubricated, which necessitated removing the entire unit from the wall. The thermostat for each unit directly controlled 110 volts and had a huge hysteresis. You couldn't find a happy medium at all. AND, there were three of the units in the living room and one in each bedroom, all problematic and noisy. Needless to say, our little Jotul wood stove was used all the time in the winter since I got tired of fuddling around with those poor excuses for heat production and we didn't want to retrofit the heating system.

Ferno wrote:cans that sit like that with no lid on that do NOT spontaneously ignite. there had to be an ignition source nearby, either external (more likely) or internal (not very likely)

I can absolutely positively say that one can did for sure light off on it's own. It had been sitting in the sun for several hours though. I think the other two were close enough to the first one to get some heat.

This preservative is very oily with a sticky resin that sets up on the wood. The stuff would probably ignite by just looking at it. But oh, does it do an excellent job of protecting wood fences. I've got one fence section I tried it on a few years ago that hardly shows any water or sun damage. As for the disposal of all my used rags, that's why I PUT THEM IN CANS OUTSIDE.

Never tried to split hickory wood flip, but I can imagine. They DO make tool handles out of the stuff.

I feel so inexperienced...we've always just had central heating via an electric heat pump, the first of which could barely heat for beans during the winter.

flip wrote:

tunnelcat wrote:

flip wrote:I don't even wanna discuss wood-burning stoves . I couldn't count the amount of trees we felled and cut up. We welded a log trailer up from plans in Mother Earth News back when it was useful. The neck retracted into itself to amke it abot 10 feet long, but you could extend the tongue and carry 24' long logs with it. Hehe, we'd go right beside I-20 and drop one, then come back about 3-4 days later. I started with a sledge and wood grenade, moved up to maul, then graduated to axe . Good memories actually except for the cold mornings .

That brings back a few memories. When we lived in Washington, we owned a large wooded lot. The winters were a little windy and invariably a few trees blew down every winter. There was that little wood stove in the living room, so we decided to cut and split our own wood. There was plenty every spring.

Well, that led to getting a chainsaw and log peavey, then a sledge and some wedges, then an axe and then a maul. We soon found out we hated Maple and loved Alder, for two simple reasons, knots and hardness. Specifically the lack of knots in Alder and the preponderance of knots in Maple. And Maple is effing hard! Gawd Maple burned nice and long though, but it was a real bear to split by hand.

Yeah Axe is best. Break the circle at the edge and then start chopping wedges out. I've never split maple that I can remember but I'm pretty sure twisted hickory is the worse . You could lose a maul, wood grenade and 2 wedges in one of those things

The worst wood to split is elm and willow

Yeah, some of that is so stringy that you couldn't split it even with a 25 ton hydraulic splitter, even when the wood was frozen solid at 5 degrees F in January. You'd just have to chainsaw those pieces in half because there was no other way.

well, we got an explanation for the exothermic reaction but... what puzzles me is those cans just don't have the insulation necessary to keep heat in. Were they buried in rags or some kind of other insulation?

Also, if the used rags are splayed out, wouldn't just that be enough to dissipate any heat buildup?

I had a lot of rags and paper towels stuffed into that one can pretty tightly, and they were very saturated with sealer. The sun was on the can for at least 2 hours, so I'm betting that on the bottom of the pile, conditions were just right for that perfect stoichiometric concentration, heat and spontaneous ignition. There was also a Styrofoam applicator inside as well. Very flammable.

Oh, Woodchip, when will you learn the difference between "have" and "of".

I know that people saying "Could have" or "Could've" can *sound* a little like "could of", but seriously, no one with more than 2 years of highschool should ever make this mistake.

Let's put it this way, if anyone ever says "could of" in a job application, or says "could of" in an interview, they instantly get taken off the list of possible hires. Usually I will advise them exactly why.

This is important stuff: literacy = thinking ability. If you can't use the English language correctly, then you simply cannot think.

This is why humans raised by animals are as dumb and as stupid as the animals which raised them. These very rare humans can not be taught to think, until they have learned to speak.

Thinking is NOT something humans can do without training.

tunnelcat wrote:I had a lot of rags and paper towels stuffed into that one can pretty tightly, and they were very saturated with sealer. The sun was on the can for at least 2 hours, so I'm betting that on the bottom of the pile, conditions were just right for that perfect stoichiometric concentration, heat and spontaneous ignition. There was also a Styrofoam applicator inside as well. Very flammable.

So what we can take away from this is A) don't leave cans that contained a flammable liquid in the heat and B) don't stuff a shitton of rags in a can that had flammable liquid in it.