Posted on 08/18/2007 1:05:13 PM PDT by Libloather
Well known in the timber industry. If it gets too hot out here (Oregon) you’ll see them watering the lumber. No joke.
Exactly correct. Hay with over about 22 to 25% moisture packed into a bale will start to get hot. Above about 25% moisture, even in a relatively small clump within a bale, can cause a fire. I’ve put up hay where, when I probed the stack after I got it off the field, I had to call the hay broker and say “Hey, I’ve got some hot hay here, could you help me out and sell/move this in less than 10 days?”
A couple phone calls later, it was done and done: about 75 tons of hay moved down the road in four days, to a huge dairy that fed it while the hay was still heating up, but not so hot that it was causing the hay to turn to ash in the bale yet.
I’ve seen a neighbor’s hay stack go up in flames in the middle of February, when it was getting down to 0F at night. This was the result of melting snow getting down in between the 1-ton bales, getting the hay wet from the outside in, and then starting the heating process.
The same thing can conceivably happen with decaying wood under the right conditions, which might be what is happening here. You’d need finely-chopped wood mulch, perhaps that was chopped “wet” when there was still sap left in the wood (you need sugars in the anaerobic process), chopped fine, then packed down with some additional moisture added.
Someone - I can’t remember who - once famously said, “If I owned hell and Texas, I’d live in hell and rent out Texas.”
You’re right, this is more like a piece of glass or metal heating up in the sun and then lighting some tinder, AKA “mulch” on fire.
I have seen buckets of old rags burn several times over the years.
Years ago in New England, haystacks always wore a tarp over the top to stop dew and rain from seeping down inside and causing combustion.
Probably a cigarette.
However, this mulch was most likely not deep enough to cause spontaneous combustion, I would say glass or maybe even a human intervention.
I very seriously doubt this!!
Normally they water LOGS to keep then wood from staining. If you pile logs they will develop blue or orange stains due to wetting and drying, therefore you wet them down constantly, especially in hot weather.
Lumber itself is stacked so as to let air dry it(usually inside a kiln), when it is dry it is in no danger of combusting after it is stacked.
I would think you are seeing logs being wetted down rather than lumber. I worked in the lumber industry for 35 years and never saw anyone wetting down lumber.
LOL!!!
There have been some disastrous fires in the South from 'hot' hay or shavings, usually in the summer. Barn I used to ride at burned right down from green hay in the loft and killed 48 horses. Most stables around here have started keeping their hay and shavings in separate buildings from the horses. Best set up I've seen is roofed concrete block bays across the stable yard from the stalls, with the hay stacked up off the ground on pallets. Never had a fire -- two of the barn rats are told off to turn the shavings every so often.
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