"It's now so hot that some things are spontaneously combusting."

[FourScore]

Spontaneous Combustion On Arlington Playground

Joel Thomas
Reporting

(CBS 11 News) ARLINGTON A new danger has cropped up at some North Texas schools.

It's now so hot that some things are spontaneously combusting.

The wood-chip fiber that's used as mulch on a playground at an Arlington school burst into flames last week.

A surveillance camera at Anderson Elementary School caught the fire on tape. It shows the mulch begin to smolder and then catch fire. It caused significant damage to the playground.

"There just isn't any explanation except spontaneous combustion," said Mac Bernd, Arlington ISD Superintendent.

SNIP

Authorities say recent heavy rain left some material soaked, then it began decomposing in this month's hot weather.

The district is so concerned about the potential for danger that it's replacing the material at the 20 Arlington schools that have the mulch on their playgrounds...


LINK WITH VIDEO:

http://cbs11tv.com/topstories/local_story_225165737.html

[Warren Stupidity]

1. It is freezing in New England.

After this morning's bike ride I decided that perhaps the freeps have a point and there is no global warming :-)

[FourScore]

3. Actually, WS, you touch in an important point.

It is so important to change the terminology of "global warming" to "climate change", since that is really what is happening.

BTW, I'm in New England as well. There is definitely a fall feel to the air today.

[rodeodance]

5. i am in Wisconsin and real chilly (for usual HOT august) after last few weeks

[Uncle Joe]

20. I have begun to combine the two calling it global warming climate change,

because the planet heating up as a whole is still the root cause of climatic instability and yet it's effects will be felt differently around the globe, parts of Europe may experience colder weather when the gulf stream becomes altered, if it doesn't shut down entirely. Floods in Texas, Great Britain and south Asia, droughts in the mid west and south east, the effects will increasingly become extreme to the point where various species can't evolve fast enough to keep up and survive.

[Tesha]

21. Trees here and there (in New England) have been losing their leaves.

Oddly enough, a few trees here and there are changing
colors and dropping their leaves, although I wouldn't
say the temperatures or the rainfall have been very
far off of normal. Today, though, did feel distinctly
like autumn.

Tesha

[NutmegYankee]

7. No kidding. I was freezing this morning.

I leave my window open and live without AC like many here in SE CT.

[FourScore]

9. Welcome to DU, NutmegYankee!

:hi:

[Cha]

17. Yeah, just the

Global Climate Change :)

[FormerOstrich]

2. That really is not a new

phenomena. Barns have been burning down for years because of damp hay. Global warming is real but saying shit like this isn't helpful.

[Az]

4. Needs more evidence

This is going to turn into a Shark Attack moment. The media is going to sensationalize this and scare the crap out of parents. All to sell soap (well mostly drugs these days).

We do not have enough evidence at this point to determine what started the fire. It needs to be investigated by more than just some teachers watching a video.

[Trillo]

16. I'd want to know how thick that mulch was.

Generally, the thicker it is, the more heat occurs within during composting, and keeping it thinner is thought to reduce fire danger. Our local fire district considers the danger threshold to be about 1/2 foot.

[tammywammy]

19. Actually not really

The news covered it for two days. First, the day it happened. Then the next day Mac Bernd said they were replacing all the mulch with a pebble mix. That's the last I heard of this.

[glowing]

6. Bull shit... I'd check what chemicals were drenched in the kiddie

mulch... The company really wants it to be spontaneous combustion instead of hazardous material dumped in the playground.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

8. no, this could really happen...

When I worked in recycling it was not uncommon to have fires in the warehouses. I don't really understand the process myself, but I have a seen a fire in a pile of damp newspaper that could not have started any other way. :shrug:

[TomInTib]

10. Sam's Anchor Cafe in Tiburon just had a fire.

Clean-up crew (2 o'clock in the morning) placed a cold pumice stone on a cold surface.

Someone came along and dropped a pair of rubber gloves on the pumice stone.

Then a towel was thrown atop that and sombody else placed a cold pan on top of the whole deal.

Destroyed the kitchen.

We were lucky it didn't destroy Main Street.

[IntravenousDemilo]

12. Very interesting, and it wasn't a very deep pile either, from the way you describe it.

Is there some property in pumice that would lead to something like this? I know it's a volcanic rock that has a frothy texture due to bubbles of trapped gas. How long did it take for the pile to reach "critical mass" anyway?

[TomInTib]

14. It took about thirty minutes.

And the energy created was intense.

The only thing that saved our downtown was a skylight over the kitchen. It blew straight up, releasing the main force of the fire through the roof.

[LiberalEsto]

11. My neighbor's mulch pile did that

They ordered the mulch a couple of years ago and he never got around to spreading it. It just lay on the blacktop driveway in the baking sun.

One very hot day last summer I drove by and spotted smoke coming out of it. I stopped the car and ran to knock on the door. My neighbor got a hose and put it out.

[LaPera]

13. WARNING: Spinal Tap drummers!

[Solon]

15. Had a similar thing happen at a high school I was working at, as a janitor...

Every summer, when the kids are out of school, we would strip the floors and re-wax them. Anyways, it was a particularly hot summer this year, about a few years ago, and I noticed smoke crossing the exit doors at the end of a hallway. So me and a few other guys went out there and saw the mulch at the side of a concrete walkway smoldering. So we rushed back inside and grabbed a fire extinguisher, bad idea. It came out at such a high pressure, that it scatter the surface mulch, which WASN'T on fire yet, just smoldering, and flames ended up spewing up. So I took charge and grabbed a hose and doused it with water, then called the fire department.

[tammywammy]

18. They're replacing all the mulch with a pebble mix now

They started the next day changing it out.