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You wouldn't be wrong. My favorite are the smokers who put out their cigarette on a wooden fence and throw it into the desert brush. Hasn't caught fire yet som

You wouldn't be wrong. My favorite are the smokers who put out their cigarette on a wooden fence and throw it into the desert brush. Hasn't caught fire yet somehow

icebraining 8y ago
Not that surprising. Lumber doesn't catch fire that easily (hence fire starters).
- v_lisivka 8y ago
  I saw it by my own eyes when I was child. Old wooden fence started to burn after cigarette butt landed at it in hot summer. Wood was dry and hot in direct light. I saw little smoke first then smoke disappeared, then, after couple of minutes, clean fire.
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    You saw the combustion equivalent of being bit by a shark and struck by lightening at the same time. Except in exceptional circumstances where the wood is highly flammable (like very dry and probably a little bit rotted wood that's at 150F+ from sitting in the sun), something like a cigarette butt or a lit match is not enough to catch lumber on fire without some other easier to ignite material in between as a stepping stone.
    - tgb 8y ago
      You seem to be quite mistaken: https://www.fire.nsw.gov.au/page.php?id=327 https://www.fire.nsw.gov.au/page.php?id=327
      - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
        Your link deals with cigarette butts igniting brush on the roadside and hay in a lab simulating roadside conditions, not lumber. Nobody here is claiming that cigarette butts can't light dry brush on fire. I am claiming that in less than "freak accident" or laboratory conditions it is basically impossible to ignite lumber with a cigarette butt unless there is something (like dry brush) in between. Edit: Based on the down votes I'm illiterate, I'm wrong or this is Reddit.
  - thatcat 8y ago
    Current cigarettes have additives in the paper so that they go out easily themselves.
rhacker 8y ago
In the summer time in various forest towns in California, some of which have had major fires recently... I see probably 20 grass fires a year. All of them start next to the road. I actually think the perpetrators are not that we have 1000 smokers, there are probably just a few REALLY bad people that don't care. They are also the kind of people that if you started to put up signs about smoking and fires, they would start throwing lit matches out the window.
- labster 8y ago
  Not that I have any sympathy for smokers, but there are a lot of anthropogenic sources of ignition. Cars dragging metal, and hot catalytic converters are a couple. Electric lines that frequently run along roads are another. And campfires and ordinary cooking fires can spark a wildfire; homeless people tend to live near roads and overpasses. The fact that we don't have more arsonists in California is one thing that gives me faith in humanity.
  - rrauenza 8y ago
    The huge California Carr fire was caused by a flat tire ... https://www.businessinsider.com/california-fire-caused-by-flat-tire-officials-say-2018-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/california-fire-caused-by-fl... > [...] The fire was first ignited on July 23, after a trailer's tire blew out and the rim made contact with the pavement, [...]

You wouldn't be wrong. My favorite are the smokers who put out their cigarette on a wooden fence and throw it into the desert brush. Hasn't caught fire yet somehow

icebraining 8y ago

Not that surprising. Lumber doesn't catch fire that easily (hence fire starters).

v_lisivka 8y ago
I saw it by my own eyes when I was child. Old wooden fence started to burn after cigarette butt landed at it in hot summer. Wood was dry and hot in direct light. I saw little smoke first then smoke disappeared, then, after couple of minutes, clean fire.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  You saw the combustion equivalent of being bit by a shark and struck by lightening at the same time. Except in exceptional circumstances where the wood is highly flammable (like very dry and probably a little bit rotted wood that's at 150F+ from sitting in the sun), something like a cigarette butt or a lit match is not enough to catch lumber on fire without some other easier to ignite material in between as a stepping stone.
  - tgb 8y ago
    You seem to be quite mistaken: https://www.fire.nsw.gov.au/page.php?id=327 https://www.fire.nsw.gov.au/page.php?id=327
    - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
      Your link deals with cigarette butts igniting brush on the roadside and hay in a lab simulating roadside conditions, not lumber. Nobody here is claiming that cigarette butts can't light dry brush on fire. I am claiming that in less than "freak accident" or laboratory conditions it is basically impossible to ignite lumber with a cigarette butt unless there is something (like dry brush) in between. Edit: Based on the down votes I'm illiterate, I'm wrong or this is Reddit.
- thatcat 8y ago
  Current cigarettes have additives in the paper so that they go out easily themselves.

rhacker 8y ago

In the summer time in various forest towns in California, some of which have had major fires recently... I see probably 20 grass fires a year. All of them start next to the road. I actually think the perpetrators are not that we have 1000 smokers, there are probably just a few REALLY bad people that don't care. They are also the kind of people that if you started to put up signs about smoking and fires, they would start throwing lit matches out the window.

labster 8y ago
Not that I have any sympathy for smokers, but there are a lot of anthropogenic sources of ignition. Cars dragging metal, and hot catalytic converters are a couple. Electric lines that frequently run along roads are another. And campfires and ordinary cooking fires can spark a wildfire; homeless people tend to live near roads and overpasses. The fact that we don't have more arsonists in California is one thing that gives me faith in humanity.
- rrauenza 8y ago
  The huge California Carr fire was caused by a flat tire ... https://www.businessinsider.com/california-fire-caused-by-flat-tire-officials-say-2018-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/california-fire-caused-by-fl... > [...] The fire was first ignited on July 23, after a trailer's tire blew out and the rim made contact with the pavement, [...]