How bad were Western fires in 2020?

Bad!

As of the end of October, Six-million acres will have burned across Oregon, Washington and California.

The fires combined with the chaos of Covid-19 on mill production and distribution has caused lumber prices to skyrocket by 120% at the end of September.

An estimated 900 million* harvestable trees were destroyed plus approximately twice that number of immature trees. In addition, several lumber mills were destroyed along with all the inventory of previously harvested lumber. Many logging operations lost all of their equipment in the fires.

To give you an idea of the magnitude, we lost enough lumber to build 23 million homes which would have been enough to replace 1 of every four single family homes in the US.

A mature and healthy forest has less than 100 trees per acre. One of the many forest management problems we face today is that the density of trees has become as heavy as 300-400 per acre in some areas. This creates a thicket and fire hazard instead of a forest.

The good news (if there is any) is that as terrible as it is it lose 6 million acres of forest, it is still less than the 9-million acres lost in 2018, and the 10-million acres lost in 2017.

The total lumber lost in the last four years would have replaced every home, apartment and condo in the US.

*Let’s say the harvestable trees amount to an average of only 150 per acre, then this last summer in Oregon, Washington and California where six million acres have burned so far 900 million marketable trees have been lost. During the last four years nearly 30 million acres have been lost to fires.

Spring Cleaning and Oily Rag Fires

Now that Spring is starting to make an appearance, many folks will be getting ready to refinish weathered outdoor decks, wood trim and furniture to look beautiful again. Be careful!  You need to know about some very real fire risks when with working oil finishes.

A while back we had a fire break out on one of our jobs in the middle of the night. Fortunately, it was confined to an exterior area where it could not affect the main property. Even so, it destroyed some tools and a wood fence and brought out the fire department. We were very lucky. If it had happened adjacent to the main structure, or if it had occurred during the dry summer months, things could have been much, much worse.

We were shocked and disturbed that such a thing could happen on one of our jobsites. We are meticulous about keeping safe working areas. Everyone on the crew is safety conscious and we have regular safety meetings. We clean-up at the end of every day.

How does this happen?

My project manager and the fire department explained to me what happened.  A painting station had been set up on the grounds outside in order to pre-finish a large quantity of IPE deck material. We had been using the station to hand apply a widely used material called IPE Oil to all sides of the deck boards. We would clean and coat the boards in the station, then transfer them to racks for drying.

Before transferring the treated boards to the drying rack, we would wipe off any excess oil with clean cotton rags. Our safety protocol was to place all used rags into a water-filled five-gallon bucket at the end of the day and seal the top before leaving. Although protocol had been followed that day, one rag apparently got left out. Turns out the questionable rag had only been used once and our employee thought it looked clean enough for continued use the next day. Wrong!

The rag was left on a bench next to the plastic paint station and sometime during the night it had caught fire. Once the rag was in flames it quickly spread to the plastic and that in turn caught the fence and tool box on fire. What a mess.

Spontaneous fires

The most common type of Spontaneous Combustion Fires are caused by improperly disposed of oil and stain soaked rags. As we have learned, the rags do not have to be “soaked”.

The products to be careful with are any oil-based paints, stains, teak and especially linseed oils. Varnishes, polyurethane and paint thinners are also problematic.

As I have learned the hard way, spontaneous combustion is not some interesting but freaky theory like ancient aliens. It is a real and predictable phenomenon. It WILL happen very predictably when cloth with any of the above oils on it is slowly heated to its ignition point through oxidation. This occurs over the course of only 3-6 hours.

Oxidation and heat

Oils and stains are designed to “oxidize” (interact with the oxygen in air) in order to dry properly. Apparently, any substance will begin to release heat as it oxidizes. When the material is spread out thinly on a board, the heat build-up is miniscule and not a problem.  But, if this heat has no way to escape, as happens inside a wadded or piled-up stack of rags, the temperature will raise high enough to ignite the oil and the cloth. Once a fire actually catches, look out. It can spread quickly to any other combustibles in the area and as you might imagine cause great damage to your home or property.

Prevention of spontaneous combustion fires begins with education about the risk. You and your employees need to understand how this works and take it seriously. Next, you must require really good housekeeping around the work area and strictly follow an oily rag protocol. A clean work area can prevent a fire from spreading and getting bigger by not allowing the fire fuel to burn.

Fully understanding the potential risk is the key step in eliminating these preventable fires.

Oily Rag Disposal Protocol

According to our local Los Altos Hills Fire Department you must take the following steps:

• Use a container with a tight-fitting lid. A metal can is preferable, but a plastic can or even a zip lock bag can work if nothing else is available.
• Place soiled and used rags inside and then fill the rest the way with water, seal the top and do not open it. This will prevent the oils from oxidizing, and thus keep the rags from heating up and igniting.
• Contact your local garbage disposal company for their policy on disposal of both the can/bag etc., and its contents. Some companies will actually permit disposal in the regular household trash, but you need to check first.

I would emphatically also add to the list above, that if you are working with any of these volatile oil materials, only do so in areas free of combustibles, that would be safe even if a fire happened to develop.

Thinking “fail-safe” will let you sleep better at night.

Paradise hero saves 28 lives during fire.

An unsung hero saves 28 lives during the Paradise Camp Fire… but he did not set out to do so.  On November 8th, with the wildfire racing towards him, Russel Moore of Magalia, CA did something daring. He collected 28 neighbors who could not escape the flames on their own, then hid them in the safest place he could knew…his church.

That decision turned out to be a godsend, literally.  As Moore and his followers took cover, the fire burned completely over and around them destroying everything except… miraculously, the church where they were hiding. When they finally dared to emerge from the structure on the  November 9th, they could not believe what they saw, or that they had survived.

Moore and the 28 lucky folks he helped are happy to be alive, even though every one of them lost their home and all of their possessions.  So what is Mr. Moore doing now? Helping survivors at the church of course. What else? 

Listen to the story here in his own words. Check out the images below of areas around the church. See how to create a plan for dealing with disasters.