Hi there,
Just had a little of a close call. My son went out to cut grass, as he likes to do.
Noticed the dead tree stump was smoking/smoldering and came in got me. I know compost can combust of the circumstances are right. Wondering if the same thing happened here.
This stump is a little out of the way and very rarely checked on. My son was out there last night and said he didn't see anything wrong.
Is this a natural occurrence or is there something nefarious going on. The stump has been dead and decaying for a few years now and was pretty much done. Things have been very dry for a while, but we did get a bunch of rain a day or two ago.
Checked around the hole, don't see anything that would explain human cause. No footprints or anything as such.
Poured a few buckets of water in the hole to extinguish and will continue to monitor.
A little unnerving if I'm to be honest.
by Wanderin_Irishman
19 Comments
Lightning?
Are you skilled at finding foot prints? I did wilderness search and rescue for a decade. I am legitimately an expert on tracking people.
It’s really hard to say with any confidence that nobody was in an area.
Do you think your son might have been tired of dealing with the stump and burned it without telling you? Anyone else in your household who might have decided to take care of it for you?
Has there been any burning nearby? Fire has been known to travel through roots.
In theory, anything can spontaneously combust.
He didnt mow over it? Mower could have hit a small rock and sparked, creating a fire that would have taken a while to show.
Mowers can send sparks quite a distance too, son could have unknowingly sent an ember a couple yards over to the root even if he wasnt near it
otherwise, my guess is a neighbor doing a controlled burn or something, and the fire traveled through the root systems. Its rare but it does happen. Lightning is unlikely to hit the ground like that, if there are trees nearby. If the root was decomposing, then it would have been mostly fungi which dont get hot enough to combust. Now if the root was covered in a pile of manure 3ft high, different story.
Tree roots can burn slowly underground for several months. Perhaps the dry, then rain has washed away enough soil to expose enough of the smouldering part of the stump where it can party with oxygen.. either that or the smouldering part finally burnt its way to the oxygen party, which sounds more likely.
Either way, it could still be lit in other places beneath the soil if it has/had large roots. Call a professional if you can.
Did the cat chew on the Christmas tree light cord?
Odd but best case scenario stump removal?
Someone defeated the monster and lifted the curse, best to pretend there never was a stump.
It looks like pumba 😭
Do you have one less pig on your property?
You don’t by chance live in [Centralia, PA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania#Mine_fire), do you?
Have you tried peeing on it?
If that thing had 9 lives, he just spent them all… he he he, wooo!
A small piece of glass could have caught the sun?
Looks like a feral pig rode the lightning.
My brother in law swears this happened to him. We thought he parked the car over it and a spark or heat or a cigarette or something but he says he was looking at it and it was smoking and then fire.
A Minnesota neighbor burned a stump in November after there was snow on the ground. In April, a strong wind blew in, and a still smoldering root started a wild fire from that burn in November.
If it’s been really dry and was pretty windy an ember can travel for miles before landing