General reminder/warning for ash disposal

I just dumped my ash bucket that had been sitting inside for well over a week. Any ash shoveling that was done in that time contained very little coals... at least that is what I thought.

I filled a large pitcher of water and grab the ash bucket as I normally do when the hose ends up on the other side of the house. I dumped the ash in the normal location and pored the pitcher of water on it. I came in to refill the pitcher and by the time I came out I had several glowing coals exposed.

It took four more pitchers of water before the ash pile stopped steaming and sizzling and nine pitchers of water were used to be sure everything was thoroughly soaked. With the amount of fallen leaves on the ground there could have easily been a fire if I hadn't soaked the ash pile with large amounts of water.

Don't just dump.

Water your ash pile.

Yeah, those things can burn forever in there! Just enough air gets into the bucket to keep 'em alive. Don't want to turn this into another ash pan/grate thread, but it's gotta be even worse if you shovel 'em out.
See some folks here dumping buckets where the last load has been added only a few days earlier.

Thats strange, when I shovel out ash (which includes a lot of red hot coals usually), I put it outside in a metal container with a loose lid on top, and it takes no more than 24 hours for it to be harmless, at which point I throw it in a trash bag outside. I have done it many times, and by the next day its always completely out/cool.

I wonder what is different in our situations?

When I take ashes out of the Lopi it goes outside immediately in a 30 gallon metal garbage can with the top secured with a bungee cord.

zap

Not a good idea to keep the pail inside.

When I clean out my stove, I put the pail outside in the snowpile and let it sit for a week or two before dumping it in the trash.

I bought one of those old-skool metal trash cans with a metal lid. The carry handle actually secures the lid in place. The ash pan on the stove gets dumped into that can on Saturday morning and again mid-week. On Friday (trash day) that can gets dumped in the trash can on it's way to the curb. If there ever is a trash fire, it will be on the street, 400 feet from the nearest house.

I usually do. When I don't, the pail sits in the back of the walk-in fireplace behind the 30.

But, this surprised me as the shoveling I have been doing contained an incredibly small amount of coals.