Safety Question: If lots of leaves pile up under my deck, is there a fire hazard?

[Guest Turrican_Man]

I have lots of leaves piled up under my deck, which extends from the back of my house and is elevated about 4 feet off the ground. The deck has wooden trellices from the dirt up to the floor level to enclose the empty space, and a lot of leaves have accumulated in this space.

 

If one corner of the space under the deck is about 3 feet high with leaves, does this create a fire hazard?

 

If so, would smoothing them out to the rest of the space, such that they were not elevated much above the ground, make it safe?

 

Thanks in advance.

[budullewraagh]

i think the better question is the following:

is there a fire hazard if i have 8 oz potassium permanganate, 8 oz magnesium turnings, 1oz magnesium ribbon, 8 oz strontium nitrate, 8 oz potassium nitrate, 2 oz 2 micron aluminum dust, oz intimitely mixed dusted aluminum and Fe2O3, 64 fluid oz 97% sulfuric acid and 1 liter 35% hydrogen peroxide in my room would THAT be a fire hazard?

 

answer is yes, and thats why i moved most of my chems to my basement.

 

 

 

with regard to your question, yeah, you have a little bit of a fire hazard but it's not particularly bad

[ecoli]

Yeah, considering your deck is made out of wood anyway. If your house is going to burn a pile of leaves 3 ft high isn't going to make that much of a difference. If it's not blocking an exit from your house it should be no problemo.

[Phi for All]

Since you're asking in the Chemistry section, are you worried about a build-up of combustible gas of some kind as the leaves compost under your porch? I've never heard of anthing like that. I think you're safe in that regard. Don't let people smoke on your porch and you should be OK.

 

And budullewraagh, I hope you have at least a one-hour rated floor between your basement and your room, otherwise you gonna burn, baby!

[YT2095]

damp leaves will generate heat in the middle due to bacterial action, damp Hay is one of the worst for this (you can actualy cook food inside a pile of that!).

there IS a critical diameter for this though, and yours isn`t even close

I think the worst hazzard you face is probably Rats and wood rot.

[budullewraagh]

And budullewraagh, I hope you have at least a one-hour rated floor between your basement and your room, otherwise you gonna burn, baby!

well, thing is that my chems are kept on a not-quite-so flammable table on a concrete floor. if my stuff fell or broke or whatnot, it wouldn't cause a fire

now, in the case of my room, i realized just how screwed i was. i had this vision in my head that the 97% sulfuric acid, kept in amber bottles, would fall to the floor, burst open, starting a fire (as my floor is made of wood), the free oleum fuming from the acid would rise, hit my KMnO4 and 2 micron Al dust causing an explosion that would knock my magnesium and 35% hydrogen peroxide into the flaming puddle of sulfuric, and that somewhere along the line my sodium peroxide and potassium chlorate would fall into something, causing them to blow up one way or another.

 

thus, i moved my chems to my basement. there are two floors between them and i

[5614]

a general answer to the question:

"If lots of leaves pile up under my deck, is there a fire hazard?"

would be that is not a large risk, but in general not advised to leave something like that to build up and remain there for long periods of time.

[Guest Turrican_Man]

Thanks for the info everyone

[Gilded]

"64 fluid oz 97% sulfuric acid and 1 liter 35% hydrogen peroxide"

 

Hmmmm... Not making any organic peroxides, are we?

[budullewraagh]

nah, i'm not that stupid. plus i wouldnt waste sulfuric on organic peroxide synths...i'd just use 35% hydrochloric from drain cleaners.

 

on second thought, that would be quite a sight, seeing my peroxide and sulfuric mix together...peroxymonosulfuric acid, anyone?

[Gilded]

"i'd just use 35% hydrochloric from drain cleaners."

 

Heard you could use citric acid too, but we're not allowed to talk about that.

 

And yeah, "piranha bath" isn't nice to even have around, and let's not even talk about cases involving people's feet or other dear body parts and lots of spilled H2SO5 (that's the composition right?). Having an unnecessary acid-caused hole through your floor isn't nice either, I'd imagine.