Spontaneous Combustion Experiment.. Successful!

I did this as an experiment to show how oily rags can burst into flames all by themselves.

The rags are cotton scraps. The oil is Penefin Rosewood oil used to oil wood decking.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Spontaneous
• Combustion

[MrCreeperAstley]

me haz three teeries :3

1. your secretly a firebender

2.god is messing around with a magnifying glass

3. chuck norris just ate taco bell

[helihoot]

@MrCreeperAstley

Number 3

[helihoot]

Pile was about 13-14" dia. I wasn't very scientific. The rags were soaked from applying rosewood oil to a deck. Yes the warm temps really helped it along.

[sausagenmuff]

wow, good to know :)

[ROBwithaB]

It was difficult to get a sense of scale here. How big would you estimate that the pile was, in term of kilograms or lbs of rag, and litres / pints of oil used?

I think that the warm temperatures on the day, and the fact that the pile was on the blacktop / tarmac made a huge difference in getting the initial reaction going. Probably saved you a few hours. In the experiment I did, it took a couple hours just to get the temperature up by 10 degrees.