About eight years ago I wanted to put some brackets on my back door frame to support a bar. It's a metal door frame so I just welded two L's on. After a couple of hours I noticed a smoky smell, so investigated. The welding on the frame had ignited the wall inside the frame, and it was smoldering. I grabbed the sprayer in the kitchen sink that is close to the door, and hosed it down. I went back to what I was working on, and in a while I smelled smoke again. This time I dragged in a garden hose and thoroughly wet the wall, making sure I got behind the metal by prying it up a little. That put it out.
The damage is inside the door frame and not visible. I don't know the extent but I'm sure it isn't much. Lesson learned - with enough heat you can burn papercrete, and when it starts it is hard to stop it. The good news is that you have hours or days of warning to put it out. Even if you can't smell the smoke you can see it and it will eventually burn your eyes. As someone commented earlier, stick built housing will go up in minutes and is much easier to ignite. I feel a lot safer in a papercrete house, it's a no-brainer.
If an arsonist with gasoline only managed a 2' hole after a full day, what would it take to cause a catastrophic fire? A nuke?
Spaceman
Vincent Pawlowski wrote:
Hi, I know of two fires, the first was in one of Lex Terry's garage structures. That story with a picture is in Solberg's book. Briefly, the story as I understand it is that an arsonist lit his papercrete roof on fire with gasoline when Lex was away. The papercrete took a long time to burn a small hole, about 8" in diameter. The volunteer fire department responded in a few hours thought they put it out with water. When Lex returned the next day, there was a larger uneven hole, but still less than 2' around. He chopped out the smoldering material. His mix used fly ash instead of Portland. You'd have to ask him to verify details. The other was caused by a plumber sweating copper pipes in Ed Conley's house. That one was put out fairly soon after the plumber left, but I don't know details. I suspect that this community would have know if anyone had a catastrophic fire. Thanks, Vince
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