5 Weird Things That Can Catch Fire

Fire: it's beautiful, it's dangerous, and it shows up in surprising places. Here are five weird things you might have on hand that can go up in flames.

Hosted by: Michael Aranda

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Sources:

Flour:

Acetone:

Glass:

Linseed oil:

Celluloid:

Images:

[Anubis]

Fun fact: "Keep your nose to the grindstone" comes from flour mills. When you were working fast, you had to keep your nose next to the grindstone to smell if the flour was getting too hot. Otherwise, the air in the room could explode. So "keep your nose to the grindstone" isn't telling you to work harder. It's telling you that if you're working hard, stay safe.

[OGSontar]

"...nothing to fret about." I facepalmed so hard, I almost set myself on fire.

[CGaboL]

I remember my Industrial Safety teacher not shutting up about how surprisingly flammable seemingly harmless powders tend to be. He must have repeated it at least once a week while I took that class.

[stavrospapadimitriou]

Wire wool in the same drawer as 9-volt batteries can be a serious fire-hazard!

[troy]

I work in a pastry factory and my job is to clean the flour that ends up coating everything since its pumped in from the silos under high pressure outside. I've always been paranoid of powder explosions but this video only consolidates that.

[cadburybunny]

Flour dust and the dust from handling wheat in general is a HUGE fire risk. Even to this day, old wooden grain elevators catch fire and burn to the ground in a matter of a couple hours if they don't outright explode ... actually watched one burn down in my Grandparents town one night. Lit up the night sky so bright the roosters all thought it was morning at 2AM.

[pluspiping]

Another one I recently learned about (having not grown up in the country: Damp hay in a large pile or bale can catch fire, just sitting there "by itself"!
The hay in the pile continues to respire, as plants do, and mold and bacteria start breaking it down, as they do. Both of these process create heat. If the temperature gets high enough, you have to start worrying about a barn fire. Because it will ignite itself.

[louisnemzer]

Old school flour mills could only operate during the day, since it was not safe to light a lamp to see at night.

[ElijahPerrin]

I started enjoying the sun one morning and noticed light smoke coming from a plant stand, the new glass sphere water jug was burning a wood bench it had been set on. There was a long curved burn line from previous morning when it was placed on the bench, thankfully I managed to notice before it became a problem.

[themossynook]

I am so glad I watched this- I use linseed oil to clean and condition my terracotta floor tiles AND I keep the cloths in a plastic bag with the container of linseed oil! Yup, definitely glad I watched this, thanks guys! x

[TheDevler]

In witchy stores, good employees tell their customers to ALWAYS cover their crystal ball. Not because of supernatural stuff, but because they start fires so easily!

[ChrisRand-gflz]

I've worked in the dust collection industry for a few years and one of the first lessons we learn is that common food items like sugar, flour, coffee creamer, etc are all explosive.

Just do a big of digging, and you can find stories of entire factories being leveled due to dust explosions. There was one in Texas a number of years ago that saw a concrete grain silo cap that weighted approximately 8 tons thrown over 3 miles from the site after the dust went up.

[bodaciouschad]

Somewhere out there, there is a guitar solo being played *so hard* right now, that their celluloid pick bursts into flame.

[simonschalbers]

Actually I once chipped my guitar pick and thought "I'm just gonna melt that edge off, so it's nice and smooth again" and that thing basically puffed into smoke instantly after getting close to the lighter

[ayanpeace]

Ping Pong balls burn out really fast (in a fun way)! My brother and I found this as kids randomly when trying to see what happens if you burn a cracked one :) So the hypothesis of flammable gas inside was definitely out. But we thought it was something similar to camphor (since the burn rate and flames were similar) - now I know it’s celluloid. Will try out guitar picks too

[RobertSaxy]

I have been surrounded by a ball of fire thanks to flour, it was almost like a bomb went off. I was just in the right spot and just the right amount of flour on me that I only walked away with just burnt hair. The speed of the burn was my savior at the end. People from about 2 blocks away came running and people close by ran away

[thomasjunker]

"Nondairy coffee creamers can be flammable too"

Ah, the memories of the infamous coffee creamer cannon that the Mythbusters created...

[GringatTheRepugnant]

My family were once mill owners, before there was a spark and... well, the rest is history. Throughout history, mills have had a tendency for pyrotechnics. There are records as early as days of the Norman Conquest and as recently as only a few years ago in automated plants of explosions caused by sparks from grindstones. Flour is no joke!

[nickbrockelman]

You forgot to mention one very important point about acetone. The vapor is heavier-than-air even when heated especially. That can cause even a little bit of acetone evaporating to sink down and run across the surface of say, a countertop to the flame and then ignite. It also means that if you use an open flame in order to help dry a project that you use paint on the Flames will rise up the ccolumn of acetone Vapor immediately

[lostmysteries]

As a painter who has linseed oil covered rags from me moving oil paints around the canvas I appreciate now being aware that I should probably keep an eye on my rags, drying pieces, and supplies more than I already do, thanks!