Officials Warn of Spontaneous Combustion Risk of Linseed Oil and Other Common Household Products
By ABC NEWSJul 25, 2016, 8:38 AM ET
Courtesy of Shannon PriddyWATCH Officials Warn of Spontaneous Combustion Risk of Linseed Oil and Other Common Household ProductsSummer is a popular time for home improvement projects, but officials are warning of a danger that many people may not be aware of until it’s too late: spontaneous combustion of common household products used to finish furniture and decks.
Oil-based wood stains and linseed oil can combust and burn even without any spark to initiate the fire, officials say.
Shannon Priddy’s Gaithersburg, Maryland, house was destroyed in 2014 after she says contractors left rags soaked in wood stain under her deck.
“We had no idea that anything like this could happen,” Priddy, who was not injured in the incident, told ABC News.
Courtesy of Shannon PriddyThe Spontaneous Combustion Risk of Linseed Oil, Other Common Products To demonstrate how easily this can happen, Montgomery County Fire and Rescue in Maryland teamed up with “GMA” on the Lookout to conduct an experiment. We put linseed oil on some rags and put them into a box and we waited.
Donnie Boyd, a Montgomery County fire inspector, explained just how combustion occurs when linseed oil is left on a cotton rag.
“It actually heats up as it dries. It's a chemical reaction,” he said. “So it spontaneously combusts once it reaches its ignition temperature.”
Two hours into the experiment, a probe recorded a temperature of 204 degrees inside the box, and after four and a half hours, smoke appeared. Nearly six hours into the experiment, the box was burning.
Boyd said ignorance of -- or disregard for -- the issue has contributed to many fires in Montgomery County. He urged everyone to carefully read the labels on products used to do housework and home improvement projects.
The label of the container used for the "GMA" on the Lookout experiment read, "CAUTION! CAN CAUSE SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION. Boiled Linseed Oil generates heat as it dries, which can cause the spontaneous combustion of materials contacted by this product. Oily rags, waste, and other oily materials contacted by Boiled Linseed Oil can cause spontaneous combustion fires if not handled properly.”
Homeowners should also keep rags that have absorbed oils, such as linseed oil, in well-covered metal cans and make sure the rags are thoroughly dried before collection or transport.
It’s a message that Priddy hopes to spread.
“I would never want it to happen to anyone else,” she said.
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Linseed oil, a common wood polish and sealant, can burn your house down in minutes if it's not handled properly.
The product can spontaneously combust and mishandling it can be as simple as tossing some rags and newspapers, soaked in linseed oil, in a box, as ABC News did for an experiment.
Mike and Sherri Prentiss of Cincinnati know the dangers of linseed oil firsthand. They left some rags in a bundle.
"I had put it sort of folded on itself in to a corner of the garage," Sherri Prentiss told ABC News. "That was about 5 p.m., and by 9 p.m. that night our garage was on fire," she said. "There were flames shooting 30 feet into the sky."
In our experiment, a thermal imager revealed glow-in-the-dark spots where the linseed-soaked rags had reached 110 degrees after an hour. After two hours, there was smoke curling from the newspapers and rags. And after three hours there were flames.
Linseed oil is safe for wood because you spread it out, but left wadded up on rags or paper the oil is so concentrated that it heats up as it evaporates. One of America's biggest high-rise fires, in Philadelphia in 1991, was caused by workers who didn't clean up linseed oil properly. Three firefighters died.
So how can you protect yourself?
Some experts say spread linseed-oil soaked rags flat on your driveway until they are totally dry. To be even safer, you can fill a metal can with water, put the rags in, and then seal it up tightly.