The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1876-12-14
Spontaneous Combustion.

NJ Quau IN Detroit free PresS.l
A lot of paper rags hung in tight
closet, or piled in store where there is
no ventilation, will sooner or later start
a fire. There are dealers who know this,
and who would as soon think of throw
ing a lighted match into cotton-batting
as of closing the storage-room against
ventilation. The lower sash of at least
one window should be taken out during
the summer, and it would be better to
have an opposite one raised few inches,
so as to secure strong draught. A few
months since some oiled rags in the
basement of Detroit picture store took
fire on a hot Sunday morning and called
out the fire department, although one of
the basement windows was open for
ventilation. 1t was through this win
dow that the smoke poured and gave the
first alarm. =--.-.-s So -7.--...... =
At the Detroit House of Correction,
in December, 1870, one of the prisoners
employed in the chair-fnishing room,
piled up a bundle of oiled rags in a
corner as the bell rang for close of work
ing hours, and at eight o'clock, only
Two hours, the shop was fired by spon-
taneous combustion and several thousand
dollars damage done. The room was
close, contained many chairs just fin
ished, and as soon as the rags were piled
and packed together the foundation was
laid for destructive confagration.
The Detroit Car and Manufacturing
Works, during period of three years,
had three fires from spontaneous COM
bustion, each fire being traced to oiled
rags. That establishment is now pro-
vided with iron boxes for storage of rags,
and on one occasion fire took place in
one of these boxes, the result of spon-
taneous combustion, and burned up all
the rags.
About two years ago one winter
evening, the watchman at the Michigan
Central Railroad car shops, located a
short distance below the company's
passenger depot in the city of Detroit,
passed through the pattern and wood
shop and found everything quiet and
safe. Fifteen minutes later he was
alarmed by the smell of smoke, and
while mounting the stairs leading to the
second story of the shop the flames burst
out in one end and the entire shop was
destroyed within an hour. A pattern
maker had used some oil and rag just
before six o'clock to oil pattern just
finished, and he had probably flung the
rag among the shavings. There was no
stove in that end of the shop, smoking
was prohibited, and no one had doubt
that the confagration was brought
about through the medium of that oiled
rag.
But spontaneous combustion does not
depend upon the presence of oiled rags
and shavings. Three or four years ago,
at seven o'clock in the evening, the front
windows, blinds, glass and sash, of a
Detroit wholesale dry goods house were
blown into the street with a noise like
the rumble of thunder, and the store was
ablaze in an instant. The porter left the
store an hour before the explosion, and
a policeman tried the doors not ten
minutes previously. The gas had all
been turned off, the steam pipes were
nearly cold, and there was no light
around the store. There was no smell Of
gas, no oils nor fluids inside, and it was
a wonder to most minds how the fire
caught. The house had an immense
stock of dry goods, and when closed fol
the night the store was like dry kiln
The heat thrown out by the goods was
like gas, and finally became powerful
enough to force its way out. A gas-light
was burning in front, and when the ho
air struck this the fire travelled bacl
into the store like a flash of lightning
The very same thing occurred soor
after at another store, on another street
and the circumstances pointed so strongly
to spontaneous combustion as the agen
that each fire was recorded under tina
heading in the record-book of the fire
department.