Idle Clothes Dryer Sparks Major Fire
Illawarra Mercury
Friday May 8, 1998
A Bellambi homeowner who suspects spontaneous combustion in her idle clothes dryer sparked a major fire has warned others to use the appliances carefully.
Dianne Downes said she nearly died of fright when she returned to her Bond St house on Tuesday afternoon to find smoke billowing from the rear laundry.
She raced through the house to make sure her precious cats were safe before attacking the spreading blaze with a garden hose.
Ms Downes said she had turned the clothes dryer off at the power point at about noon and left the house just before 3pm. The laundry was well alight when she returned about an hour later.
"I opened the dryer when I turned it off and that gave it a good supply of oxygen," she said. "I think the fire must have started before I left the house.
"The fire caused about $15,000 damage and I just want to warn others their dryers are potentially dangerous.
"I would never have thought the heat of the clothes in a dryer could cause spontaneous combustion but I guess they do get pretty hot."
Her insurance assessor and a fire brigade spokesman said the cause of the fire, which caused smoke damage to the rest of the house, was yet to be determined. But Bulli Fire Station's Alan Gilbert said although rare, there had been cases of spontaneous combustion in clothes dryers.
Station Officer Gilbert said it was important to regularly clean lint filters and keep an eye on dryers.
It was important to let a dryer finish its cycle on the pre-set cooling program, he said. Over-drying could pose a fire risk and people should set dryers for the minimum time.
"Just as a car engine can get hotter when you stop, because the cooling system has stopped and there is no air flowing over the engine, hot clothes left in a dryer can get hotter," he said.
"The heat has got nowhere to go and sometimes, very rarely, it will be enough to generate a fire."
Mr Gilbert said that most times the mere act of sorting and folding clothes was enough to disperse the bulk of the heat.
© 1998 Illawarra Mercury