Lawn Care Forum banner
Cancel
Create thread New Forums

Spontaneous combustion

Jump to Latest
21 - 29 of 29 Posts
#23 ·
I was walking my dog late one night and noticed a neighbor's dumpster was smoking. I called him to get the hose and he said he had cut his grass that day.

I believe it!
 
Save
Reply Quote Like Like
#24 ·
The Lesson for Today.....

Everything gives off heat as it decomposes. Even rust forming on steel gives off heat. It just does it so slowly, it evaporates immediately. The key is how insulated is the decomposing material in relation to how fast it is decomposing? We lost a barn about five or six years ago because my uncle stacked his green hay in there. It took several weeks, but sure enough one night my grandmother was awakened to a loud knock at her door. When she went to see who was there, some passer-by was yelling "Your barn's on fire!". The whole barn and some newborn kittens :( were lost.

Getting back to your grass pile. Just turn it over with good pitchfork if it'll give you some piece of mind. Hey, you've just started a compost pile.:)
 
#26 ·
Last summer at out town dump, the grss clippings were being mixed in with the wood pile to be made into mulch. The entire wood pile wen tup in flames. This year they have a dedicated grass pile and it is turned over on a daily basis to avoid fires.
 
#28 ·
THere are a lot of factors that will determine whether a pile is going to combust. Height, moisture content (rain believe it or not is the worst thing you can have happen) C/N ratios are one of the key ones, We have a woodwaste recycling yard and I can tell you that fires are a normal occurence. We do not accept grass clippings because they increase the Nitrogen ratio in our piles and that's when the heat starts rising. We are required to take daily readings of the temperature in several locations, and any sudden rise is the key thing we look for. We ground 21 acres of old peach trees this spring and then one of the wettest series of storms we've ever had came through and soaked them and the ground so badly that we could not get in to move them to the co-gen plant for several weeks. folow that up with a 90+ degree heatwave and you got 12 piles of mulch ranging from 300-800 yds each on fire. well, you ever seen a $60k bonfire before. All we could do was sit there with the water truck and watch them burn. It was awesome to watch at night as they smoldered and put on a really cool (albiet expensive) show.
The bottom line is that if your piles are low (in the 2-4' range. and you are composting mostly nitrogen products, your odds of a fire should be pretty remote. But, if your worried about it you should knock em down and not sweat it.
 
21 - 29 of 29 Posts
About this Discussion
28 Replies
23 Participants
Last post:
Daner
Lawn Care Forum
posts
7.2M
members
230K
Since
1999
A forum community dedicated to lawn care and landscaping professionals and enthusiasts. Come join the discussion about performance, modifications, classifieds, troubleshooting, maintenance, and more!
Full Forum Listing
Explore Our Forums
Lawn Mowing Pesticide & Herbicide Application 🔧 Mechanic and Repair Business Operations Lawn Mowing Equipment