Cottonwood Fires In Your Own Backyard
By Leads on Apr 28, 2009 in Society
Fires can occur in the strangest ways! Take my friend. He lives in an older neighborhood where there are a lot of Cottonwood trees. Now, you don’t see a lot of Cottonwood trees planted in neighborhoods anymore, mainly because they release this puff ball of cotton that flies through the air like a giant dandelion seed. Those things pile up like SNOW-I’m not kidding! They get stuck in your vents, on your screen door, and all over your grass. So many homeowners associations have banned the trees.
Well, he had a pile of Cottonwood fairies in and around one of those built in grills and his deck. These things made a solid pile line all around his yard and wooden fence, too. Can you guess what happened? The things ignited under his barbecue! The fire flashed all around like the Cottonwood seeds were gunpowder: all of his lovely Cal Flame outdoor kitchen accessories burned, his deck burned, his yard burned and his fence burned-it almost burned his neighbor’s yard and could very well have ignited the shake shingle roofs. It could have been a complete disaster! Luckily, those things flash and burn out so fast that they don’t have time to really ignite much unless you have grease, an old dry deck, old dry yard and an old dry fence. So watch out you people with Cottonwoods!
Jen | May 1, 2009 | Reply
OMG! I’ve never heard of such a thing! Good thing the fire didn’t spread any farther. No wonder neighborhoods are banning cottonwoods. That’s too bad because they’re pretty trees.
Michelle | May 1, 2009 | Reply
Yikes! I hope he had insurance on his grill and his accessories. How did those things ignite in the first place? I wonder if he could have done anything to prevent it.
Nate | May 1, 2009 | Reply
Yeah, what would you do if you had cottonwoods in your area? Sounds like you would need to be pretty diligent in cleaning up your yard and especially making sure they don’t accumulate under the grill!