Spontaneous Combustion...of a Dorm Room

Name of Myth: Spontaneous Combustion...of a Dorm Room


History/Background of the Myth: You’re MacGyver show reminded me of a potential bust. Specifically, it had to do with the addition of alkali metals (sodium, lithium, potassium – whichever one you all used) to water to try and get an explosion (from the generation of hydrogen and heat) strong enough to blow through a wall. This is an example of a type of spontaneous (pyrophoric) combustion. Also, growing up in ranch/farm country, spontaneous combustion was always a potential hazard…whether it came from linseed oil soaked rags used to rub down furniture with, grain dust trapped inside the silos (many more dangers than this come from silos), or, most importantly where I grew up, from haystacks that were, ironically, stored too wet and start to go through “curing” (from a fermentation process) instead of just remaining non-reactive and in storage. First of all, hay as it is cut and stored gives you all sorts of surface area to work with. When you add (too much) water and microbes / fungi to the mix all sorts of things begin to happen. 1) The (fresh) cut hay still respires for quite a while after cut…especially if moist…given off some heat. 2 ) The microbes/fungi present begin to metabolize the hay (probably from the sugars stored within the hay), respire and give off quite a bit of heat in the process. The more heat that is trapped (within a range) the more active the microbes become, etc… Hay naturally oxidizes (or burns) in the air (in the presence of, what else, oxygen) and a very slow rate normally. However, given the additional heat from the microbes, the oxidation process of the hay becomes accelerated…so on and so forth until the combustion temperature is reached and fire/explosions result.
Anyway, it is this hay process (minus the microbes) which reminded me of a “prank” that was supposedly pulled many years ago at the college that I was attending at the time. It went something like this: Stacks of newspapers from all over campus were accumulated, bundled, stacked and kept in a storage room near the dorm complex that I was staying at. This was some 30 or so years ago, so I’m not sure if it was for “recycling” at that time or not. Regardless, there were lots of papers kept for the trash/recycling/or some other purpose. One weekend, the occupants of a dorm-room on the top floor of the complex left for the weekend and some fun (so I was told). Some of the others that lived on the same floor (obviously) had a few too many drinks Friday night and thought that filling the vacated room with stacks of newspapers would be hilarious. The original thought was to just put the stacks of the papers directly into the room…arrange them appropriately so that it would be hard to get to anything in the room without completely unloading the stacks, etc. In other words – a real pain the derrière. However, as drunks tend to get incredibly lazy, it became increasingly obvious that carrying over heavy stacks of newspaper for this purpose was quite hard and not at all fun. So, just how could they complete the project without having to retrieve so darn many newspapers? (Light bulb comes on!) Instead of filling the room with stacks of newspapers (which probably would have been fine), they will only bring over a few stacks – undue the bundles, taking the newspaper apart - wad/crinkle each piece (“increasing” its volume) – and toss it in. Bingo. The job will not involve so many stacks and will look more impressive when the room is filled from top to bottom and papers just come falling out of the door when opened. What was not taken into consideration, however, was the fact that newspaper oxidizes (burns) in normal air without any help (albeit, slowly) – which is why it “yellows” and gets brittle over time. Also, by taking each sheet of paper separately and wadding it up, you GREATLY increase its surface (reactive layer). Heat is generated through the oxidation process…trapped by the “blanket” of wadded up papers…the increased heat further increases the oxidation process – and so forth (especially in a closed room) – until smoke, fire, explosion (blowing out the window) “supposedly / allegedly” occurred. Anyway, it could be quite interesting to test a few of the more well know forms of spontaneous combustion first…then test the newspaper hypothesis to see if it is really possible.

Hypothesis of the Test: Can newspaper spontaneouly combust in a closed dorm-sized room...possibly leading to explosive results.

Ideal MythBuster(s) to Conduct the Test: Probably Tory, Grant and Kari. However, as fire and explosions are (could be) involved, Jamie and Adam may also be interested!


Best Method to Conduct the Test: Would do a quick test of some better known spontaneous combustion reactions (some in my intro above) and explain why they work. Then, either build a small dorm style room (not a suite)...something like 12x12x8 ft or so with a window...or find a room that could be "toasted" if necessary...fill with wadded up newspapers...wait, monitor temperature, and have fire extinguishers handy (or the local fire station). Will definitely take several hours...maybe even a day to two...maybe not at all. Thinking that summer would be the best time to try this for the best chance of confirming (or busting for that matter).

My Prediction: Busted/Confirmed/Plausible (choose one) Plausible

Related Images: None ATM