Devils Lake Fire Likely Caused by Spontaneous Combustion

A Sunday night blaze at a Dakota Dry Bean elevator is being being blamed on spontaneous combustion.

The Jamestown Sun spoke with Devils Lake Fire Chief Jim Moe, who had this to say about the cause of the fire:

We ruled out arson. That leaves only three things, based on where the fire was found.

Those three things are:

Dust on lights that could have overheated, an overheated bearing or spontaneous combustion.

The Fire Chief believes that the first two are highly unlikely, and employees reported moisture and heating, which could have led to spontaneous combustion.

According to Wikipedia, spontaneous combustion is a type of combustion which occurs by self heating (increase in temperature due to exothermic internal reactions), followed by thermal runaway (self heating which rapidly accelerates to high temperatures) and finally, ignition.

Damage caused by the fire has been estimated at $1 million.

[The Jamestown Sun]