Composting

So at what point does this catch fire?


Duck bedding, chicken crap, and shredded leaves

by 1971CB350

13 Comments

  1. Almost 180! That’s incredible decomposition. 🤘

    Fire won’t start at 180, I’ve decontaminated goods at 180-200. Maybe fire starts over 250-300’ish. Not sure.

  2. keysgoclick

    It probably won’t, it will just consume the nutrients and start cooling off again. I’ve had mine that higher a few times and nothing more than some steam early in the morning.

  3. frog-and-cranberries

    I’ll admit I’m paranoid about spontaneous combustion, so if this was my pile, I’d be removing the tarp, spreading it out, and giving it some good ventilation. Watering it to a nice even moisture, then pile it back up again and monitor the temp.

  4. MobileElephant122

    At the point of spontaneous combustion

  5. I thought high temp will kill off the microbes?

  6. decomposition_

    Fahrenheit 451 for the temperature paper burns at, I don’t know any other combustion temps off the top of my head 😂 I think you’ll be fine as long as you hold off on adding new greens for a little bit. Maybe start a mini pile next to it and combine them once the temperature cools off 10-25 degrees

  7. Drinks_From_Firehose

    That is too hot, and it’s leading to the collapse of the microbiome. You should consider turning it and ensure it’s not too wet.

  8. CraftyAd5340

    Fun fact: natural organic reduction (human composting) requires 72 hours at 170 or above to kill disease.

  9. Puzzleheaded-Mix-157

    The spontaneous ignition of compost is a concern not because of the ignition point of paper. Piles that hot are likely to have anaerobic pockets. One of the byproducts of anaerobic fermentation is ethanol. Ethanol has a flash point of 55 F, meaning above 55 degrees F all it would take is a spark for ethanol to ignite. So the risk is that in a pile that gets that hot ethanol vapors may ignite if there’s is some static and the pile, which has likely dried out in many areas because of how hot it’s gotten will burn.

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