beachbum

I once had a chestnut tree in my front yard (this was back in Kentucky) and I gathered some of the nuts and stored them in the garage and guess what.

I got worms, worms out the butt, millions and zillions of worms. YUCH...

stryder2112

Yep, entirely possible. Happens all the time with very large municiple compost piles, piles of hay, and silage.

Your guess of 70 C being the high temp is a little low. In another life I did research dealing with composting and the microbes involved. The highest temperatures inside the pile can easily top 95 C if it is suffuciently aerated, but that temp makes a dead zone where no microbes can survive. A "healthy" compost pile usually has a center temp between 70 and 80 C.

The consortium of microbes in a compost pile is quite interesting with a mixture of bacteria and fungi that segregate themselves by temperature gradient - highly thermophilic bacteria near the center with the fungi more concentrated toward the outside.

In fact, some of the more interesting bugs are the thermophilic bacteria that produce enzymes that break down cellulose - they're being actively investigated to generate methods of enzymatically reducing cellulosic plant matter into fermentable sugars that can be converted into fuel ethanol or other products through fermentation.

stryder

[ March 01, 2002: Message edited by: stryder2112 ]</p>

ohwilleke

Remember the nuts were for the squirrels not the grandkids. The grandkids were just supposed to pass them on.

Certainly once a fire starts, one would imagine that there would be lots of combustables in the garage to assist the fire in spreading. Indeed, it wouldn't be unthinkable that the can itself had something easily combustable in it before the nuts. So, it wouldn't take much to get it started.

Corwin

BTW....

May I take this opportunity to thank everyone involved here for.... how should I put this... 'not going there?'

MAN this topic could have been the source of some.... interesting humor.

Mageth

Spontaneous combustion can occur in a variety of materials, including coal, sawdust and oily rags.

My father grew up around sawmills (his father and uncles ran sawmills all over east Texas). The ground around the sawmill typically became piled several inches if not feet thick with sawdust over the years. It was not uncommon to see smoke rising from various places in the "yard" due to spontaneous combustion of the sawdust.

Instead of "trapped oxygen" causing the nuts to combust, I suspect air was getting into the bucket (the seal created by the other bucket was not airtight), and the air (plus dampness) was causing oxidation of chemicals/oils in the nuts. Oxidation generates heat; the heat could build up (trapped in the "sealed" bucket) until hot enough to ignite cellulostic materials (the nuts).

Note that this is not caused by organic decay by microbes or other agents.

See this <a href="http://www.tcforensic.com.au/docs/uts/essay6.pdf" target="_blank">link</a> for a good explanation of spontaneous combustion.

[ March 04, 2002: Message edited by: Mageth ]</p>

Corwin

Just to add in... decay of organic materials by microbes or whatever frequently causes oxidization.... (among other reactions.)

Microbal decay isn't the only source of such heat... but it is a source.

Mageth

Good point, Corwin. I should have said that microbial decomposition may contribute to oxidation/heat generation. But it is not necessarily present.

Jonsey3333

I can picture the scene at the insurance offce now...

"I'm sorry, sir, your policy doesn't cover nut fires..."

I remember reading about biomass energy (I think that is what it is called) which is using compost as fuel. It is only economically feasible when the waste product is produced at the same place that it is burned and used.

hehehe

-Mike