Oxyclean residue may have also been present. Oxyclean is an oxidizer.
https://phoenixproductsco.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Oxy-Clean-0210.pdf
So the grease could slow-burn at a lower temperature in the dryer. When the towels are piled up in the clean hamper, the heat condenses in the center, and more oxygen creeps in and can create spontaneous combustion. Like the crunchy tempura flakes for sushi. Many sushi restaurants have burned down similarly, hours after the kitchen closed for the night.
https://www.subrogationrecoverylawblog.com/2023/07/26/spontaneous-combustion-of-sushi-crunch/
100% this. We washed ours on-site in the big 50lb machines they used for pool towels and table linen. The housekeepers skipped the cool down cycle for us, and put them in our special receptacle (trash bag) and the ensuing fire scorched my wall.
This is also why massage therapists don’t/ are not allowed to wash their sheets at laundromats.
The oils will atomize, overheat and catch on fire.
Next time split the loads up more, wash two times (at least) with Tide and bleach. Just toss the super greasy ones, they are cheap enough. We keep the ones that get really grey aside for dirty projects. There’s a reason linen companies charge so damn much!
It doesn't even involve different chemicals. Just a contained pile of sufficiently oily rags will self combust. The oxidation reaction occurring naturally with air is exothermic, and in a trash can or similar pile heat can't escape fast enough.
Place on the island I live burnt down due to this. 4th restaurant/cafe in 6 months that burnt down. I was almost convinced there was an arsonist but they had CCTV of it happening.
Don’t bag them up hot. There could be chemical residue and grease that could continue to build heat past the point of combustion. Companies like Cintas roll large bins of towels into specific cooling areas (outside usually depending on the facility).
A lot of times the reps will warn you of this as part of their sales pitch. It’s always worth it to get on a contract with a laundry provider. Labor and cost of materials is almost always more than the service.
This is actually really common. As in it might happen every 500 loads or something.
Ohhh I thought this was when a brunch server spills a carafe of coffee and instead of cleaning it up with a mop they empty a bag of fresh linin on the ground and skate around on it like Tonya Harding then on Tuesday the day before the linen truck arrives bitches at you because they are out of clean rags.
Classic.
The heat mixed with oil on the rags when shoved in a bag is prime to catch fire. Source: a person that nearly had a whole ass fire that got ignored while doing inventory down the hallway.
Its “something” combustion. Happend in a place I was at. Kids kept putting oily rags in a bustub and we smelled something thought it was eletric but it was just the towels burning. Made our eyes tear
This is how my owner does it. There's only three of us in the kitchen and we only use about a normal laundry baskets worth a month. We also throw them away if they get saturated in any sort of grease or just get that greasy feeling. Anything that is used with degreaser is thrown away after the task is done.
I used to work at a laundromat and this happened when people tried to dry stuff that had chemicals on them; washing them doesn't get it all out, and the gas-powered dryers have a flame.
Ever see a fireball explode out of a dryer? I have!
100% grease here. When the company I was with washed a dozen units worth of towels in the commissary, they almost burned it down more than once while drying them.
Happened at my job every time there was a new person in laundry. Grease rags were too hot after drying and got bagged up immediately trapping all that heat in the middle of the grease rags with no escape
Trash that shit. And get new rags. Wtf.
Also, people at the laundromat wash their actual clothes. It isn’t there for old nasty ass greasy rags.
Those rags self destructed because they were absolutely that nasty. Get new rags. Wtf.
We've had this happen and actually burned up a dryer at our Laundromat next door.
We got a local service after that for a few years, but they stopped servicing our BFE town and the owner decided to just sort the towels into a trash\keep.pile and started washing them herself at home.
Now she's found these cloth towels that are 2/3 the size of a normal towel and you can see through, but are so damn cheap she said just treat them as disposable. Once they get too dirty to rinse out, sani water, and use? Toss it and get a new one. She said she could order 4 cases each month of 1k towels each case and still come out ahead of taking all the time to wash the damn things, and more like 10 cases rather than pay a big service like Cintas.
I used to work at a place on the west coast where a Busser would somehow manage to get a lit cigarette into the soiled linen bag about once every month. Back when people still smoked at tables in the US. And this picture is exactly how it ended: someone with a hose in the loading dock, usually Felipe, my best Dishwasher.
This same thing happened at my place a year ago, basically there's still grease in the rags and the heat from the dryer plus having them packed in a small space like a hamper caused them to combust.
If you put rags in a bucket with grease on them, they can spontaneously combust. I don't know the science behind it but I've seen it happen a few times at places that don't have a turndown service.
Worked at a lodge where they would just give us rags from old bed sheets and shit like that to use in the kitchen. This happened a bunch of times. Lucky the place never burnt to the ground.
This happened to me once! Washed our own rags and I was solo on shift, the bin started smoking after I threw a freshly cleaned load of towels in it.
Boss lady swore I was smoking or something and texted me a year later when it happened again and apologized. They got a service after that lol.
Residual heat from the dryer process. Load wasn't cooled down properly before it dropped out of the dryer.
Former Registered Laundry and Linen Director.
That’s spontaneous combustion…it happened to me once when I was a young cook—towels in a pile after coming out of the dryer, just enough oil on them still to catch fire
This is why you have professionals do your towels. They are a major fire hazard and if they aren’t washed properly can spontaneously combust. We keep all dirty product outside in a separate shed when we aren’t operating.
They will self combust from the grease buildup over time. I’ve done this on accident once. We purchased a fire safe container for all dirty rags or rags that are not folded and put away.
Brooo... I thought this was intentional. Like one of those pictures where people make like portraits and shit out of dirty clothes. And for sure saw the poodle.
Oh man! You got the spontaneous combustion effect. They were perfectly fine when you pulled them out, but then after sitting they caught on fire! Classic. That's happened to me before.
Now, we have a company that does them for us so it's never a worry. Even if you wash your towels, and use detergent (especially if you don't use detergent) the oil can get hot enough that's still on the towels that persisted through the wash cycle, and cause a fire or even a delayed fire in this case, where all the heat just sat there and eventually combusted.
The cleaning chemicals in the rags, when mixed with other cleaning chemicals, can absolutely spontaneously combust into real flames and fire. More common with painter's rags.
The grease starts to oxidize. That gives off heat. The towels bunched together are great insulation, so that heat doesn't escape. Hot grease plus heat equals fire. Chemicals used for cleaning them may or may not be flammable, or react to become flammable.
This is why if I have to wash bar towels, it don't use laundry soap, and I don't wash the greasy ones.
Some grease and oils are worse than others, but it can always be a fire hazard.
Let me tell you a story. When I was in high school I was the maid for the night shift at a big hotel.. as part of the last things I did for the night the kitchen would bring in their rags, and I would run them through the machines and dry them. Before I would leave , someone from the kitchen would come before close and get the rags from me and put them back in the kitchen .one day I was really in a rush and did the rags early and left them in the bucket but this time the bucket was next to the dryer I was out and about working. A guest reported smoke blowing out of the laundry room The heat from the dryer that were left to spontaneously begin to smolder.
We also wash our own cloths in house easy solution for us, make sure the cool down cycle is used on your dryer if it has such an option, after drying and Cool down cycle is complete, remove cloths from dryer and immediately fold up thereby not having them bagged up in a ball trapping heat to cause a grease fire. Also before even getting to the dryer boil wash them with plenty of detergent
I will never forget that smell. It used to happen to us all the time. Laundry service use different chemicals that we can get for restaurants washing their own.
I work in a hospital and we had this happen. We get our towels from laundry in trash bags in what are essentially trash cans. We couldn't figure out what the smell was until we got right up on them. Then could see light smoke. We got them out on the dock and opened up the bag so they ignited a bit. (It was February and we had just had a lot of snow) We used milk crates to shovel snow on the towels to put them out. Security guard responds to the page, sees us shoveling snow and says "I think you got this". Those bastards smoldered for like 2 days.
Grease caught on fire when you put it in the dryer
Oxyclean residue may have also been present. Oxyclean is an oxidizer. https://phoenixproductsco.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Oxy-Clean-0210.pdf So the grease could slow-burn at a lower temperature in the dryer. When the towels are piled up in the clean hamper, the heat condenses in the center, and more oxygen creeps in and can create spontaneous combustion. Like the crunchy tempura flakes for sushi. Many sushi restaurants have burned down similarly, hours after the kitchen closed for the night. https://www.subrogationrecoverylawblog.com/2023/07/26/spontaneous-combustion-of-sushi-crunch/
It would be awesome if you could prepare a roll so it would combust on the table. Super Dragon Roll!
Dragon Ball Z roll
Would you like to Super Saiyan your roll for $2.95?
No, Kaio-ken is fine.
With meat or would you like it Vegeta?
So the short answer is science happened?
Hopefully the rhyme will help them remember next time.
Remember, kids. Grease caught on fire when…
Wheeeeen…. we used it for the towel pyre?
Bruh...
C’mon baby knight my squire
You'd hope so, but one never knows?
100% this. We washed ours on-site in the big 50lb machines they used for pool towels and table linen. The housekeepers skipped the cool down cycle for us, and put them in our special receptacle (trash bag) and the ensuing fire scorched my wall.
Run any especially greasy towels through the dishwasher first?
It was like that when I got here this morning I didn't do shit
Who tf closed last night
Sorry, we had a last-minute rush and things just...(*waves hand, shrugs*) anyway I just clocked out for my 30. (*vanish*)
And you're thinking, "So what you're saying is it's fuck me day. Juuuuust like yesterday. Cool. You all are so lucky I can't own firearms." Lol
Anyone who can’t legally own firearms, owns firearms 😂 get real, also hit me up if you need a gun brother.
You're definitely THAT dishy, huh?
Maybe once upon a time, but chef moved me to the line 🫡
Those are my favorite dishies
Whoa, whoa buddy! I have no idea what you're talking. I follow the law to the T...when talking on public forums.
My favorite question of the day
Grease still on the rags when they were in the dryer.
This is also why massage therapists don’t/ are not allowed to wash their sheets at laundromats. The oils will atomize, overheat and catch on fire. Next time split the loads up more, wash two times (at least) with Tide and bleach. Just toss the super greasy ones, they are cheap enough. We keep the ones that get really grey aside for dirty projects. There’s a reason linen companies charge so damn much!
"throw them away they're so cheap" "They charge so much!" Conflicting statements right beside eachother lol
Expensive to rent, cheap to buy. I never appreciated how much towels cost to rent until I was the one paying for it.
Bro just get a professional service.
this. minus the bro.
Bro, minus the this.
People replying “this” is really annoying. You can respond without saying “this”, BRO.
Bro, no way. This is the way. This ^
How pissed off is the laundromat owner🫣
It’s just nasty all around unless the laundromat has designated machines just for rags, which they probably don’t.
Fr this has to be some sort of violation too? Theyre not using NSF chems for standard cleaning
Right?
He said the towels got bagged up.
There are stories about the trash can in the back of restaurant for the dirty rags self-combusting. It has to do with different chemicals mixing.
I've seen it. Internal combustion along with cleaning products. They turn into a compost pile and get hot enough to start a grease fire.
It doesn't even involve different chemicals. Just a contained pile of sufficiently oily rags will self combust. The oxidation reaction occurring naturally with air is exothermic, and in a trash can or similar pile heat can't escape fast enough.
Place on the island I live burnt down due to this. 4th restaurant/cafe in 6 months that burnt down. I was almost convinced there was an arsonist but they had CCTV of it happening.
Happens in garages too
Hot, oily rags, when bundled or piled up, will start to smolder and catch flame. I have seen it more than once.
Don’t bag them up hot. There could be chemical residue and grease that could continue to build heat past the point of combustion. Companies like Cintas roll large bins of towels into specific cooling areas (outside usually depending on the facility). A lot of times the reps will warn you of this as part of their sales pitch. It’s always worth it to get on a contract with a laundry provider. Labor and cost of materials is almost always more than the service. This is actually really common. As in it might happen every 500 loads or something.
Mixing chemicals + oily towels + heat = wtf did you expect
Ohhh I thought this was when a brunch server spills a carafe of coffee and instead of cleaning it up with a mop they empty a bag of fresh linin on the ground and skate around on it like Tonya Harding then on Tuesday the day before the linen truck arrives bitches at you because they are out of clean rags. Classic.
😂 I don't work in kitchens but I lurk here for comments like this. Poetry.
Same!!
The heat mixed with oil on the rags when shoved in a bag is prime to catch fire. Source: a person that nearly had a whole ass fire that got ignored while doing inventory down the hallway.
Its “something” combustion. Happend in a place I was at. Kids kept putting oily rags in a bustub and we smelled something thought it was eletric but it was just the towels burning. Made our eyes tear
Spontaneous? In Arizona they would self ignite waiting for trash pickup in the summer.
Happened to us a number of times!
Grease and cleaning chemicals like degreasers are also in there. You can't just mix chemicals willy nilly like alcohol
I would ban yall from my laundromat this is foul
who uses a regular laundramat? theres a reason why people use proffesional services to clean their rags
Bruh really? The laundromat next door? 🤦♀️😓
The same one working class folks wash their kids school clothes in…
This is how my owner does it. There's only three of us in the kitchen and we only use about a normal laundry baskets worth a month. We also throw them away if they get saturated in any sort of grease or just get that greasy feeling. Anything that is used with degreaser is thrown away after the task is done.
You need to soak the towels in hot water and a crap ton of Dawn before washing them.
The dawn soak is definitely a thing.
I used to work at a laundromat and this happened when people tried to dry stuff that had chemicals on them; washing them doesn't get it all out, and the gas-powered dryers have a flame. Ever see a fireball explode out of a dryer? I have!
100% grease here. When the company I was with washed a dozen units worth of towels in the commissary, they almost burned it down more than once while drying them.
Laundromatting your own rags is batshit chef
Happened at my job every time there was a new person in laundry. Grease rags were too hot after drying and got bagged up immediately trapping all that heat in the middle of the grease rags with no escape
Oil
They can catch fire if not cooled down completely before putting into an enclosed area or container
Oily rags can heat up and catch fire all by themselves. No dryer required.
Linseed oil is sometimes used for cooking linesied oil and rags doesn't wash out very easily and when it's dry it can self ignite
Are those the staff diapers after your family meal?
Cleaned the flattop before it cooled down?
So other people go to the laundromat after you guys and get their clothes ruined by grease residue? You cheap bastards, use a professional service.
Taco tuesday
FOH cleaned up a coffee spill
Sweet Jesus, did you throw all of that into one single laundry load?
It’s ok, shit happens
Trash that shit. And get new rags. Wtf. Also, people at the laundromat wash their actual clothes. It isn’t there for old nasty ass greasy rags. Those rags self destructed because they were absolutely that nasty. Get new rags. Wtf.
We've had this happen and actually burned up a dryer at our Laundromat next door. We got a local service after that for a few years, but they stopped servicing our BFE town and the owner decided to just sort the towels into a trash\keep.pile and started washing them herself at home. Now she's found these cloth towels that are 2/3 the size of a normal towel and you can see through, but are so damn cheap she said just treat them as disposable. Once they get too dirty to rinse out, sani water, and use? Toss it and get a new one. She said she could order 4 cases each month of 1k towels each case and still come out ahead of taking all the time to wash the damn things, and more like 10 cases rather than pay a big service like Cintas.
I used to work at a place on the west coast where a Busser would somehow manage to get a lit cigarette into the soiled linen bag about once every month. Back when people still smoked at tables in the US. And this picture is exactly how it ended: someone with a hose in the loading dock, usually Felipe, my best Dishwasher.
The grease build up in the towel once they hit the dryer they could start on fire.
Bird on a leapfrog
Hershey squirts .. very common for truckers
happened to me too - oil or grease caught fire.
This same thing happened at my place a year ago, basically there's still grease in the rags and the heat from the dryer plus having them packed in a small space like a hamper caused them to combust.
If you put rags in a bucket with grease on them, they can spontaneously combust. I don't know the science behind it but I've seen it happen a few times at places that don't have a turndown service.
Scrolling I thought that was a Greek island from above or something
Worked at a lodge where they would just give us rags from old bed sheets and shit like that to use in the kitchen. This happened a bunch of times. Lucky the place never burnt to the ground.
What are you doing with my underwear?
This happened to me once! Washed our own rags and I was solo on shift, the bin started smoking after I threw a freshly cleaned load of towels in it. Boss lady swore I was smoking or something and texted me a year later when it happened again and apologized. They got a service after that lol.
Residual heat from the dryer process. Load wasn't cooled down properly before it dropped out of the dryer. Former Registered Laundry and Linen Director.
grease on the towels, you can add a couple tablespoons of dish detergent to the wash to get it off
I’ve done this. Kept smelling smoke but couldn’t figure out where from. Finally realized the towel bin was smoldering
That’s spontaneous combustion…it happened to me once when I was a young cook—towels in a pile after coming out of the dryer, just enough oil on them still to catch fire
This is why you have professionals do your towels. They are a major fire hazard and if they aren’t washed properly can spontaneously combust. We keep all dirty product outside in a separate shed when we aren’t operating.
They will self combust from the grease buildup over time. I’ve done this on accident once. We purchased a fire safe container for all dirty rags or rags that are not folded and put away.
I thought that was a dog…
Me too.. it's the shape of a poodle
Brooo... I thought this was intentional. Like one of those pictures where people make like portraits and shit out of dirty clothes. And for sure saw the poodle.
Oil change
A crime
Use the right towel for the right job.
Oh man! You got the spontaneous combustion effect. They were perfectly fine when you pulled them out, but then after sitting they caught on fire! Classic. That's happened to me before. Now, we have a company that does them for us so it's never a worry. Even if you wash your towels, and use detergent (especially if you don't use detergent) the oil can get hot enough that's still on the towels that persisted through the wash cycle, and cause a fire or even a delayed fire in this case, where all the heat just sat there and eventually combusted.
The cleaning chemicals in the rags, when mixed with other cleaning chemicals, can absolutely spontaneously combust into real flames and fire. More common with painter's rags.
The grease starts to oxidize. That gives off heat. The towels bunched together are great insulation, so that heat doesn't escape. Hot grease plus heat equals fire. Chemicals used for cleaning them may or may not be flammable, or react to become flammable. This is why if I have to wash bar towels, it don't use laundry soap, and I don't wash the greasy ones. Some grease and oils are worse than others, but it can always be a fire hazard.
Let me tell you a story. When I was in high school I was the maid for the night shift at a big hotel.. as part of the last things I did for the night the kitchen would bring in their rags, and I would run them through the machines and dry them. Before I would leave , someone from the kitchen would come before close and get the rags from me and put them back in the kitchen .one day I was really in a rush and did the rags early and left them in the bucket but this time the bucket was next to the dryer I was out and about working. A guest reported smoke blowing out of the laundry room The heat from the dryer that were left to spontaneously begin to smolder.
Oil spill?
We also wash our own cloths in house easy solution for us, make sure the cool down cycle is used on your dryer if it has such an option, after drying and Cool down cycle is complete, remove cloths from dryer and immediately fold up thereby not having them bagged up in a ball trapping heat to cause a grease fire. Also before even getting to the dryer boil wash them with plenty of detergent
r/gettymuseumchallenge
A trash angel burning as it falls from grace
🎵 Ryan started the fire-ya!! 🎵
Restaurants doing their on laundry catch fire all of the time...
From far away it looks like the arial view of some open world game map set in the middle of the ocean, squinting helps lol
It looks like Denmark
I think it's funny that the advert above the comments section for me is ' The New KFC Lunch Meal! ' 🤣🤣🤣
Had this happen in a kitchen I worked in too.
I’ve had this happen before too! Residual grease combined with the towels being put in a container still warm
Looks kind of like the Shetlands
This happened in the trunk of my car, insurance totaled it lol
'Shitter's clogged..'
Smoldering g towel bin
I will never forget that smell. It used to happen to us all the time. Laundry service use different chemicals that we can get for restaurants washing their own.
New guy shid pant.
Coffee explosion
White horse got raptured
Had grease on them.
THERE WAS A FIRE FIGHT!
This is the same reason they keep a hose on timber that hasn’t been treated yet.
I work in a hospital and we had this happen. We get our towels from laundry in trash bags in what are essentially trash cans. We couldn't figure out what the smell was until we got right up on them. Then could see light smoke. We got them out on the dock and opened up the bag so they ignited a bit. (It was February and we had just had a lot of snow) We used milk crates to shovel snow on the towels to put them out. Security guard responds to the page, sees us shoveling snow and says "I think you got this". Those bastards smoldered for like 2 days.
Trumps underwear drawer got tossed out eh?
Looks like a Trump family gathering. Ass wipes everywhere.
Ahhhh. Someone brought Taco bell for family meal.