Posted on 01/21/2014 1:33:29 PM PST by Teotwawki
An Alabama woman got more than she bargained for after she tried to clear toilet paper from her yard by setting it on fire and accidently burned down her house. Cheryl Crausewell's home and yard in Dora were TP'd by neighborhood kids on Saturday and the nightmare began when she and her son tried to quickly clear the paper from a tree with fire on Monday. A bit of the flaming toilet paper leaped from the tree, charred most of her yard, whipped around to a backyard barbecue propane tank and eventually engulfed the entire home. Crausewell suspects the propane tank may have exploded, contributing to the blaze.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Must have been a helluva lot of TP.
script for a future simpsons episode
Not possible.
Normally here in Texas someone burns down a house trying to kill a snake. I see Alabama is way different.
You are correct. A propane tank will explode, but it takes a heckuva lot of heat to get it to do so, like another burning tank of propane or an acetylene torch. Mere TP flames would never come close.
Certainly not from the impingement of fire fueled by a roll of toilet paper. And if it had exploded, the whole neighborhood would have known.
Even at high temperature the safety valve is designed to vent the gas. It would possibly ignite, spouting a long column of flame but it would never explode. Unless it was tampered with.
WATER HOSE...............
Would it be possible for the TP fire to burn through the hose, which was under pressure?
There was that case a few years ago of an industrial yard full of propane tanks on fire, and they cooked off like rockets, so technically even they didn’t “explode.”
Might create a bit of a torch, I suppose. My feeling is Propane tanks would have to have quite a few fail-safes, considering how commonly they are used in residential neighborhoods. I find it hard to believe it would be easy to burn or cut a hose.
I’m more likely to believe the house fire started when embers landed on the asphalt shingles.
Hold muh beer and watch this.
A propane tank (500 gal. I’m guessing) blew up on an extremely hot day in Wisconsin (at a resort at a golf course, I was there), no open flame was involved. I can see a heated tank exploding due to rising pressures in a tank.
Oops!
...maybe the safety valve malfunctioned as well.
That pile of unraked dead leaves next to the siding probably didn’t help either.
I happen to know that a propane tank inside a burning house will explode quite nicely. Let’s not go into detail about how I know this.
Most likely the valve was left open but still connected to some device that had
another shut off valve, bbq pit, grill and the hose burned enough to leak. Then
there was plenty of fuel for a little while.
LOL!
You don’t have to explain.
Let me use my imagination. :))
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