Spontaneous Combustion

[Toddy]

It works best when the heat can't escape fast enough; a rag crumpled and left in a corner for instance. I do know of an aromatherapist who didn't wash the towels she used well enough and put them into the tumbledrier......which went on fire

Cheers,
Toddy

 

[browndrake]

i think it works best when you dont want it to. Be careless for a while and you can burn the house down....

There may be some easy, controled way to do it, but I can think of easier modern ways to make fires and also of primitive ways which are plenty of fun and quite reliable.

 

[KIMBOKO]

I don't know if this help but my understanding of linseed oil is that it a naturally drying oil. The drying process is a natural polymerisation. It takes a long time to dry with raw oil so the oil is "boiled" so that once exposed to air it dries quicker. Thinking that perhaps the process of polymerisation is exothermic then boiled oil would work better. This is only speculation as I havn't checked out any of this.

 

[rich59]

I don't know if this help but my understanding of linseed oil is that it a naturally drying oil. The drying process is a natural polymerisation. It takes a long time to dry with raw oil so the oil is "boiled" so that once exposed to air it dries quicker. Thinking that perhaps the process of polymerisation is exothermic then boiled oil would work better. This is only speculation as I havn't checked out any of this.

This is all fascinating. I have now read lots more web sites on this. It appears that lots of natural oils are "drying oils" this includes sunflower oil and corn oil. One site suggested that unsaturated fats/ oils are generally in this category with oxidation involving the unsaturated bonds in the fatty acid chains (for the biochemists). A fire safety site described an experiment where terry toweling was wetted with sunflower oil up to 20% by weight of the towel and then put in the tumble dryer. Sometimes they would ignite in the dryer. Other times a pile of warm/ dry newly folded towels straight out of the drier would burst into flame.

This is pure speculation but I just wonder if primitive man might have first got some control of fire through this? (Oily materials left about, not terry towelling!)

I would begin to agree Kimboko that boiled linseed oil might be expected to be more prone to fire as it is designed to dry quicker - and therefore put out heat more quickly.

 

[Ketchup]

I know of sea captains who told me scrap-iron + air = spontaneous combustion. It happens all the time in scrapyards and ships tranporting the stuff (but there's of course a lot of friction on any ship). When taking scrap iron on board, they now flush the holds with carbon dioxide to prevent fires.

But I agree carrying a boatload of scrap is not exactly a way of lighting a fire when on a hike.

 

[BobFromHolland]

I know of sea captains who told me scrap-iron + air = spontaneous combustion. It happens all the time in scrapyards and ships tranporting the stuff (but there's of course a lot of friction on any ship). When taking scrap iron on board, they now flush the holds with carbon dioxide to prevent fires.

But I agree carrying a boatload of scrap is not exactly a way of lighting a fire when on a hike.

Couldn't this have been the steel-wool-and-battery type of ignition?

 

[Biddlesby]

Just been reading through the wildwood survival article. Perhaps a new way to make charcloth?

 

[scruff]

i should have stumbled into this sooner....its too long to read through already (worked all weekend and its catching up on me) but i'll try and chip in tomo.

just one thing coal deposits and freshly laundered towels ignite through mass heating (a result among other things from the presence of moisture) and is not the same as 'spontaneous combustion' seen in linseed oil soaked rags.

iirc boiled linseed oil is less likely to combust due to having being treated (boiled) as there will be less volatiles present in the liquid.

although it maybe a tad heavy reading, if you did want to find out more i'd recommend reading "Introduction to Fire Dynamics" (Second Edition)
by Dougal Drysdale. its THE bible for fire safety and engineering.

please be careful if your experimenting though....these threads always make me worry.