Had a "little" porch fire

[joshuabardwell]

Long story short, my porch lit on fire the other night. My girlfriend smokes, and she had a trash can full of finished compost, into which was set a five gallon bucket, and then in that was a pyrex bowl with her butts in it. She was working on screening some compost, and then she needed somewhere to put her butts where our son wouldn't get at them, so she put them down in the trash can. And then three months later, the trash can is still sitting there, with a zillion butts in the pyrex bowl. Anyway, she goes out to smoke a last cigarette before bed, and comes back in the house hollering, "There's a fire on the porch!" I grab a fire extinguisher, of which we have many, because we use a wood stove for heat in the winter, and I run out there and the trash can is burning, it's melted down and flames are about three or four feet up the side of the house. As scary as that sounds, it was not too big a fire, and it instantly went out when I hit it with the fire extinguisher. Then I hosed down the whole area with a hose for about ten minutes just to make sure there were no surprises under the porch. The porch didn't even get to the live-coal stage, and our house is a log home, so there are some scorch marks on the front wall, but zero actual damage to those big, thick logs. We're really lucky. If she hadn't gone out to smoke that last cigarette, the porch probably would have caught fire, and who knows where it would have gone from there.

Our best guess as to what happened is that the last butt she put in the bowl lit the other butts on fire, and then from there, the plastic trash can started burning. Cigarette butts have cotton filters, and as anybody who's used dryer lint as a fire-starter knows, cotton will burn pretty good, given the chance.

Anyway, near-miss. Everybody check your fire extinguishers and smoke detectors, and if you smoke, don't put your butts out in a big ashtray full of month-old butts!

 

[stuckmotor]

Joshua,
I've read that the lack of a hollow cavity within the walls of a log house is helpful in preventing the spread of fires so, the logs might have played a part in saving themselves. I'm glad things were no worse.
Stuck

 

[dirt ditch]

Glad it was only scorch marks. Could have been much worse. A couple years ago a friend of ours did something similar. She does not smoke in her house just on the front porch. either her son or her threw a cigarette into the grass then went to bed. Woke up in the middle of the night with the front of the house on fire. The porch was toast and the fire got into the living room before the fire department put it out. Hole house had smoke damage. She had to find a new place to live.

 

[Jstpssng]

Glad you caught it in time. And I'm sure that your girlfriend already has figured out to do something different with her butts; even without your encouragement.

Good reminder about the smoke detector too; I had forgotten that mine needs a new battery.

 

[polo1665]

Scary stuff there. Maybe a small bucket of water would be better for the butts. Glad you caught it in time!

 

[s219]

I don't mind when people smoke around me at all -- it's typical in the business and I am used to it. But the number of close calls I hear about -- similar to this story -- makes me wonder sometimes. When you add in mouth cancer, lung cancer, lung disease, etc, I can't even see the upside. The addiction must be pretty strong to accept all the hazards and risks of smoking.

 

[lilranch2001]

Long story short, my porch lit on fire the other night. My girlfriend smokes, and she had a trash can full of finished compost, into which was set a five gallon bucket, and then in that was a pyrex bowl with her butts in it. She was working on screening some compost, and then she needed somewhere to put her butts where our son wouldn't get at them, so she put them down in the trash can. And then three months later, the trash can is still sitting there, with a zillion butts in the pyrex bowl. Anyway, she goes out to smoke a last cigarette before bed, and comes back in the house hollering, "There's a fire on the porch!" I grab a fire extinguisher, of which we have many, because we use a wood stove for heat in the winter, and I run out there and the trash can is burning, it's melted down and flames are about three or four feet up the side of the house. As scary as that sounds, it was not too big a fire, and it instantly went out when I hit it with the fire extinguisher. Then I hosed down the whole area with a hose for about ten minutes just to make sure there were no surprises under the porch. The porch didn't even get to the live-coal stage, and our house is a log home, so there are some scorch marks on the front wall, but zero actual damage to those big, thick logs. We're really lucky. If she hadn't gone out to smoke that last cigarette, the porch probably would have caught fire, and who knows where it would have gone from there.

Our best guess as to what happened is that the last butt she put in the bowl lit the other butts on fire, and then from there, the plastic trash can started burning. Cigarette butts have cotton filters, and as anybody who's used dryer lint as a fire-starter knows, cotton will burn pretty good, given the chance.

Anyway, near-miss. Everybody check your fire extinguishers and smoke detectors, and if you smoke, don't put your butts out in a big ashtray full of month-old butts!

I am sure glad you found your butt fire when you did, that could have hurt!

 

[polo1665]

I don't mind when people smoke around me at all -- it's typical in the business and I am used to it. But the number of close calls I hear about -- similar to this story -- makes me wonder sometimes. When you add in mouth cancer, lung cancer, lung disease, etc, I can't even see the upside. The addiction must be pretty strong to accept all the hazards and risks of smoking.

The addiction is very strong. It's going on seven years since I quit, and it was the toughest thing I ever did.

 

[farmgirl19]

polo; Congrats on quitting!

 

[polo1665]

polo; Congrats on quitting!

Thanks farmgirl. After seeing what smoking did to my dad after all those years, the choice was obvious.