Do wood chips spontaneously combust?

[SnowRidge]

My wife's commute passes by a large mulch operation. It has gone up twice from spontaneous combustion that we know of. It does happen.

 

[N80]

I also suspect that most paper mills etc take measures to prevent this sort of thing. I agree with everyone else, I imagine its rare, but it clearly happens.

 

[AlanB]

I lived next to a sawmill in Germany for about a year, and one of my wifes favorite stories about that time was the FIRST time it caught on fire while we were there.

One of the high points was the FD (all volunteer) were sitting in my living room drinking coffee and having cake and the place re-ignited. I was having a Canary pointing and hollering and trying my best German to make them understand that it was BURNING again. Finally my wife say's they know, they are just going to finish their coffee and cake before putting it out again.................

It caught fire in the dry woodchip pile about once a month. It ceased to be an "emergency" for those guys.

It was explained to me it was a combination of the size of the chips, the age and type of the wood and the moisture content and the size of the pile. The sawmill owner was told several times, several ways to fix it and he just did not want to do it. At some point the volunteers did not exactly Rush to put it out.

 

[JazzDad]

Woodpile Blaze Creates Houston Haze - Houston News Story - KPRC Houston
The cause?

Spontaneous Fire Burns Playground - Houston News Story - KPRC Houston
Is this the story Bird mentioned?

We've probably all heard of hay that was too green being put in the barn, only to destroy the barn.

 

[txdon]

Yes, I remember two. Jazzdad pulled up one from the 2001 news archive. I also drove by another one about a year later in north Houston but a different location. The second pile was also about 50 feet high.

 

[Bird]

Yep, JazzDad, that was the story I had in mind. And now yesterday I read this story in The Dallas Morning News. Another flare up in a 30' high pile of mulch.

 

[kossetx]

Malcolm Beck of garden-ville over in San Antonio has chip piles 30' tall. They have had one fire that I know of but it is mixed with biosolids.

My wood chip piles are usually 4-5' tall. They don't even get warm.

A leaf pile will compost at any height, even one leaf on top of another, if it has moisture.

 

[farmerjim]

they will def catch fire if the temp of the pile is correct( about 175f or better for hay) just like hay that was baled a bit wet and stacked up in the barn. there was a commercial mulch producer here in ct near the shop i used to work out of and their pile caught fire and it burned for 3 days i believe. the fire dept was there hosing the pile down as they opened the pile up w/ some payloaders. it had kind of a weird small to it, if i remember right.

 

[BigE_]

Wood needs to be 450F for it to combust. Yes, it is possible, but you need some serious decay for that to happen.

 

[N80]

Wood needs to be 450F for it to combust.

That doesn't sound right.