Fire Investigation Unit Station Officer Marcus Barrett offers therapists advice on how to prevent potential fires before they occur.

NFPA-921 Guide to Fire and Explosions investigations 2021 definition – Self-Heating and Self Ignition:

• Self-Heating – The result of exothermic reactions occurring spontaneously in some materials under certain conditions, whereby heat is generated at a rate sufficient to raise the temperature of the material.
• Self-Ignition – Ignition resulting from self-heating synonymous with Spontaneous Ignition
   

What does that mean to the thousands of people working in the therapeutic massage, remedial massage and myotherapy industry? My name is Station Officer Marcus Barrett and I have been a firefighter for 30+ years and a Fire Investigator in the South East Region based on the Gold Coast, Queensland for the last 15 years.

During that time, I have attended and investigated several structural fires at massage clinics and laundry services that launder for massage clinics. The cause of these fires has often been attributed to spontaneous combustion of cotton massage towels contaminated with massage oils. This typically occurs when towels are washed then dried in an electric clothes dryer before being folded in a bundle and placed on a shelf or basket. By doing this, the cotton still infused with a small amount of massage oil begins to oxidise and the temperature increases without a means of dissipating the heat. The temperature will rise to a point of self-ignition.

I attended a fire investigation in Palm Beach on the Gold Coast recently and the cause of the fire was found to be exactly what I have just described. The owner of the business informed me of Massage & Myotherapy Australia, which brings me to writing this article to assist the industry and perhaps prevent further fire incidents happening in the future.

How does it happen?

Spontaneous combustion, or self-ignition, occurs when a natural oil contaminates a fabric, cotton being one of the best. When oil dries it does so, not through the evaporation of water but through a process known as oxidation. A by-product of this oxidation process is heat. This heat needs to dissipate and if it doesn’t a reaction known as thermal runaway can take place. This reaction is simply the heat increasing due to an exothermic reaction to this heat, if unable to dissipate, it then applies more heat to the exothermic reaction which continues to heat further until self-ignition occurs and a fire starts.

How do I prevent it from happening?

As with all fires, remove one element and the fire goes out. So, with massage towels we must either wash them so well that there is no trace of oil left or allow them to dry naturally. Neither of these however is foolproof as you will not know if all the oil has been removed and to dry towels in the open air is not always possible. To prevent the situation, a simple fix is to wash and dry as normal but allow the heat from the drying process to dissipate prior to storing towels. Let the clothes dryer run its full cycle including the cool down setting. Also ensure the lint filters in the clothes dryer are kept clean as per manufacturer’s instructions. When the cycle is finished allow time for the clothes to cool by airing them out before folding and storing.