Early-morning garage fire at Deschutes River Woods home traced to combustion of oily rags being laundered
BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) – A garage fire early Tuesday morning that caused about $30,000 in damage to a home in Deschutes River Woods was caused by spontaneous combustion of oily rags from a commercial kitchen that were being laundered at home, an official said.
Bend Fire & Rescue crews were called around 1:15 a.m. to the reported fire on Tuscarora Lane, Deputy Fire Marshal Dan Derlacki said.
The occupants awakened to the smell of smoke in the home and soon found the lights weren’t working, Derlacki said. They quickly called 911 when the fire was found in the garage.
Crews were able to quickly stop the fire upon arrival, before it had a chance to spread to the rest of the home. The residents had safely evacuated to a neighbor’s house with their pets, Derlacki added.
The fire was determined to be spontaneous combustion of oily rags from a commercial kitchen. The rags were laundered at home, Derlacki said, and once they finished drying, put into a laundry basket without folding them.
"Spontaneous combustion of oily rags occurs when rag or cloth is slowly heated to its ignition point through oxidation," Derlacki said in a news release. "A substance will begin to release heat as it oxidizes. If this heat has no way to escape, like in a pile, the temperature will rise to a level high enough to ignite the oil and ignite the rag or cloth.
"In this case, drying the rags started the heating process," the fire official added. "Washing the oil-soaked cloth doesn’t always remove all the oil and can still pose a threat after drying. The act of folding the linens is usually enough to cool them down below the ignition temperature."
Derlacki said these types of fires are more common in commercial kitchens, where the abundance of cooking oils and grease is greater than at home. In this case, the occupants brought rags home from a commercial kitchen in town to launder before returning to work the next day.
Most household kitchen rags don’t get the amount of oil soaked into them as would be found in a restaurant, Derlacki said, sharing a link with national and local references to fires caused by similar cooking oil soaked rags: https://societyinsurance.com/blog/handling-greasy-rags-to-prevent-spontaneous-combustion/
The owners are working with their insurance company to begin repairs as soon as possible, he said.
The smoke alarms did not activate in this case, as most of the smoke was limited to the garage and laundry room, areas where smoke alarms are not normally found.
