Late-night Georgetown MA fire destroys North Street barn caused by Wood Pellet Stove Ashes!

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Don2222

Minister of Fire
Feb 1, 2010
9,117
Salem NH
Hello

What happens if a Wood Pellet Stove owner dumps HOT ashes back into the plastic wood pellet bag and then into a plastic trash bag inside the Barn??

Not sure what this guy is burning? Turning the stove off mid morning and still have hot ashes at 7pm at night?
Does this make sense??

http://www.wickedlocal.com/georgeto...fire-destroys-North-Street-barn#axzz1JT0RFfWe

By Anne Kasper / Wicked Local Georgetown
Posted Jan 18, 2011 @ 09:44 AM

Georgetown —

Around 11:30 p.m. on Saturday, a car driving by the intersection of North Street and Pond Street in Georgetown pulled into the driveway of 52 North St. with its horn blaring. The unknown driver was trying to alert homeowners to a fire that had broken out in their barn. The honking got the attention of a neighbor who saw the flames and called 911.

Mark McFadden, who lives at the North Street home with his wife, Donna, and their children, also looked outside and noticed the fire when he heard the honking. According to Donna, who was out of town on a ski trip with their sons, Mark called up to their daughter who put on shoes and a coat, and they went outside with the family’s dog. Donna said everyone got out safely, and no people or animals were hurt.

“Even our bunny in the backyard is fine,†she said.

The blaze spread quickly and ended up destroying most of the barn, but the attached home was saved, with only minor smoke damage.

According to Georgetown Fire Chief Al Beardsley, the call for a confirmed house fire came in at 11:33 p.m. He said Deputy Chief Russ Moyer and Deputy Chief Rusty Ricker arrived about the same time, and Engine One was the first heavy equipment at the scene.

When the firefighters arrived, the fire had already spread to the second floor of the barn, and it was so heavily involved that Beardsley said he didn’t want to send any firefighters into the building for fear of a collapse.

The historic barn was more than 200 years old, and Beardsley said buildings that old tend to burn quickly.

“They’re dry tinderboxes,†he said.

Beardsley explained that 15 minutes after they started fighting the blaze, the left side of the building did collapse.

Containing the flames

The firefighters initially broke into two crews, Beardsley explained. One crew attacked the main body of the fire with large amounts of water from a high-capacity hose called a blitz line. The other crew went into the house, which is connected to the barn by a breezeway, with a smaller hose to prevent the fire from spreading into the house and to check for any possible extensions of fire.

“If we had hesitated for a moment, the fire would have gotten into that house,†Beardsley said. He added that a heavy wooden door in the breezeway was closed when the fire broke out, and that helped keep it from spreading into the house.

Beardsley also credited the unknown driver honking the car horn for helping to prevent damage to the house by drawing attention to the fire sooner than it might have been noticed otherwise.

He explained that the daughter had been in an upstairs bedroom that faced the barn, and there was already heat and smoke coming through the electrical sockets in that room when the fire department arrived. According to Beardsley, if the fire had gone undiscovered another 10 or 15 minutes, they would have had a very difficult time getting her out of that part of the house.

As more equipment and manpower arrived on the scene, another blitz line attacked the fire from behind the building, and a ladder truck poured water onto the fire from above. A ladder truck from Groveland was positioned at the intersection of Prospect Street and Pond Street to help protect neighboring homes, but fortunately, it did not need to be used, Beardsley explained.

Beardsley declared the fire under control after 45 minutes, and firefighters remained on the scene until about 3 a.m.

Buried hydrant

One problem that the fire department faced was that a fire hydrant near the home was covered in snow and had to be shoveled out by firefighters and neighbors. Beardsley said they were lucky in this instance because there were other fire hydrants nearby, including one across the street at Perley School, that they had immediate access to while that hydrant was cleared.

The fire chief explained that the fire department had been shoveling out hydrants all over town but they unfortunately hadn’t gotten to that neighborhood yet. He asked residents to pitch in by clearing snow away from a hydrant near their home, a small thing that could help save one of their neighbors or even their own house some day.

What sparked the fire

The state fire marshal came to help with the investigation, but Beardsley said the cause of the fire ended up being straightforward.

According to Beardsley, the fire originated in a trash bag on the left side of the barn. He explained that there is a pellet stove in the house, and Mark McFadden turned it off mid-morning on Saturday. Then around 7 p.m., he cleaned out the ashes, put them back in the bag they’d come in and placed it in a plastic trash bag in the barn. The ashes weren’t completely cool and ended up igniting the fire.

 

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Impossible, guy had a woodstove, media bullchit, by the time my stove shuts it's fan's off there is no ash thats hot, even clinkers.
 
I have observed the ash burning inside my stove. It's gets a weird look where the ash takes on an ember-like appearance which creeps through the pile.

Hot coals jump out of the firepot and can become insulated by the ash as well and smolder for a long period of time.

In my opinion, it's perfectly plausible that ash from a pellet stove caused this fire.
 
I will differ from this. My St Croix insert has hot embers in the ash pan WELL after the fans shut down. They're covered by ash...and are hot enough to start a fire...

I've pulled clinkers out with my hand still hot enough to not be able to hold them.


Pellet-King said:
Impossible, guy had a woodstove, media bullchit, by the time my stove shuts it's fan's off there is no ash thats hot, even clinkers.
 
Pellet-King said:
Impossible, guy had a woodstove, media bullchit, by the time my stove shuts it's fan's off there is no ash thats hot, even clinkers.

The temp of the ash upon shut off of the stove is different depending upon the stove. My montage ash is a little warm to the touch when the stove ends its shut off cycle. However the ash in my Harman P-38 stays a little on the hot side for a few hours after I shut the stove down.
 
How is this impossible?
I did it this year with my shop vac cleaning out the stove. I waited for my stove to go through its typical shutdown (about an hour). Sifted through the ashes for embers and did not see or feel anything, continued to vacuum out the stove as normal. Put the vacuum out on the front porch and wallah an hour later when the wife came home, she said to me you know the vacuum on the front porch is smoking? Damn if it did not catch on fire inside and melt the filter basket right off the motor and lid from the inside. If my wife had not come home another hour or so and my front porch would have probably been on fire and the bottom of the shop vac was melted pretty good.
 
Ed S said:
How is this impossible?
I did it this year with my shop vac cleaning out the stove. I waited for my stove to go through its typical shutdown (about an hour). Sifted through the ashes for embers and did not see or feel anything, continued to vacuum out the stove as normal. Put the vacuum out on the front porch and wallah an hour later when the wife came home, she said to me you know the vacuum on the front porch is smoking? Damn if it did not catch on fire inside and melt the filter basket right off the motor and lid from the inside. If my wife had not come home another hour or so and my front porch would have probably been on fire and the bottom of the shop vac was melted pretty good.


Thanks for the input Ed S and everyone else.

That would not happen with my stove either, since the ash is quite cool after shut down. Also I never get clinkers since it burns more completely. However I can see it happening now with some stoves maybe an hour or so after shutdown.

In the case of the barn burning above, having really hot ash atleast 8 hours after shutdown of the stove still seems a little hard to believe with a pellet stove?? I can understand if it is a wood stove??

Maybe the facts in this story are not correct to cover up any human error and the shutdown was within an hour??
 
Don2222, I have noticed a disturbing trend with your threads. Most reporting fires blamed on pellet stoves.
Where were you on Saturday evening around 11:30 :coolmad: ........Just teasing, safety reminders never hurt.
But now seriously where do you find all these articles?
 
Hello

Those articles are all out there on the Internet.

Anyway, my point is that there are quite a few fires blamed on wood pellet stoves even though they are a very safe heating appliance. However we do not see all the facts and maybe sometimes when they say wood or pellet stove it is not a pellet stove involved at all!!

Also most firefighters will tell you that many times the cause lies with the human element involved not the stove.

So I am trying to point out that since pellet stoves were made back around 1986, the newer models are very safe and have many new safety features! So if a newer stove is installed and maintained properly there is very, very little chance of the actual WOOD PELLET STOVE burning a house down!!!
 
Some years back a big story brought the media in droves to my neighborhood
and I learned at that time that more often than not they tend to screw
up the facts. After that I believe none of what I hear.
Bottom line as always is: put your ashes in a safe place.
We all know the drill but some people learn the hard way.
Glad to see nobody was hurt in the blaze.
 
Bottom line is that it is the same rule as guns. Guns don't kill people. People kill people. >>> Pellet stoves don't cause fires. IDIOTS cause fires!!!! (Nothing personal Ed. S. %-P )
 
I guess having my Whit and not having a push style stove with a huge ash bin, maybe this could happen, i burned wood from 1987-1998, ashes would be buried for maybe 3-4 days after when cleaning/shifting.
 
tjnamtiw as was taught to me,

Rule number one when it comes to guns: A gun is always loaded, even when empty, so handle appropriately.

Rule number one when dealing with solid combustion products(aka ash): It is always above the combustion temperature of any nearby combustibles, even when cold, so handle appropriately.
 
If he told the truth about how long it took for the pellets to ignite, then ash is certainly an amazing insulator. I wonder if it could be infused with some cement and molded into firebrick. But that would compact it a lot. At least the stove wasn't involved. The thing that has the fire inside it is the thing that causes concern, but that concern is almost totally unfounded, fortunately.
 
tjnamtiw said:
Bottom line is that it is the same rule as guns. Guns don't kill people. People kill people. >>> Pellet stoves don't cause fires. IDIOTS cause fires!!!! (Nothing personal Ed. S. %-P )

Nothing personal taken. This was my 1st year owning a pellet stove so I am learning my lessons as I go. Luckily all this one cost me was a $50 shop vac. :)
 
Ed S said:
tjnamtiw said:
Bottom line is that it is the same rule as guns. Guns don't kill people. People kill people. >>> Pellet stoves don't cause fires. IDIOTS cause fires!!!! (Nothing personal Ed. S. %-P )

Nothing personal taken. This was my 1st year owning a pellet stove so I am learning my lessons as I go. Luckily all this one cost me was a $50 shop vac. :)

I'm glad that's all that happened, for sure. I invested in a Loveless Ash Vac and don't have that worry but the things are outrageously noisy! You really need ear plugs (not kidding) and wait until the other half is out of the house. I don't use it for my daily cleanup so it's tolerable. Keep ear muffs in my tool box.
 
SmokeyTheBear said:
tjnamtiw as was taught to me,

Rule number one when it comes to guns: A gun is always loaded, even when empty, so handle appropriately.

Rule number one when dealing with solid combustion products(aka ash): It is always above the combustion temperature of any nearby combustibles, even when cold, so handle appropriately.

Those are good rules to LIVE by and stay alive, Smokey.
 
Smouldered for 3 days covered by snow:

http://www.9news.com/news/article/193613/339/Firefighter-charged-with-starting-Soda-Creek-Fire-

Joel Worley is charged with accidentally starting the Soda Creek Fire in Evergreen on March 21. He faces a possible misdemeanor charge and a fine of up to $1,000.

Worley, 37, is an experienced firefighter with 13 years under his belt at the West Metro Fire Department.

He told 9NEWS if an accidental fire could happen to him, it can happen to anyone.

Worley was working off duty burning piles of deadwood for a homeowner near the Soda Creek Subdivision on Friday, March 18. He had a permit and claims he followed all standard safety procedures, including checking the piles before he left and covering them with snow to ensure the fire was out.

"It's something I'm familiar with and confident with doing," Worley said.

Worley estimates he has done more than 1,200 controlled burns, and has been contracted by the homeowner for the past seven years to collect and dispose of slash, as part of a fire mitigation plan.
 
Como said:
Smouldered for 3 days covered by snow:

http://www.9news.com/news/article/193613/339/Firefighter-charged-with-starting-Soda-Creek-Fire-

Joel Worley is charged with accidentally starting the Soda Creek Fire in Evergreen on March 21. He faces a possible misdemeanor charge and a fine of up to $1,000.

Worley, 37, is an experienced firefighter with 13 years under his belt at the West Metro Fire Department.

He told 9NEWS if an accidental fire could happen to him, it can happen to anyone.

Worley was working off duty burning piles of deadwood for a homeowner near the Soda Creek Subdivision on Friday, March 18. He had a permit and claims he followed all standard safety procedures, including checking the piles before he left and covering them with snow to ensure the fire was out.

"It's something I'm familiar with and confident with doing," Worley said.

Worley estimates he has done more than 1,200 controlled burns, and has been contracted by the homeowner for the past seven years to collect and dispose of slash, as part of a fire mitigation plan.


Wow that is amazing how dry it is out there in Denver Colorado!!
That explains why there are so many fires out that way! Also how you can never be too careful with handling warm ashes!!!
 
"Smouldered for 3 days covered by snow:"
Man! that's even weirder that spontaneous combustion! Three days in snow? And the melting snow didn't extinguish it? Reminds me of the 2 recent cases of experienced sky-divers (trainers even) dying in accidents during normal jumps when their chutes collided. Some things can happen the first time or the thousandth time. Hence the need for good insurance.
 
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