Spontaneous Combustion and Safety Measures for Disaster Wastes

Abstract

In order to understand and to propose a countermeasure for fires caused by accumulations of a huge amount of disaster waste (rubble), thermogravimetry -differential thermal analysis, high sensitivity calorimetry and gas chromatography were performed. It was found that the small heat generation by fermentation was one of triggers of the fire. We concluded that fermentation inside domestic waste, such as rotten tatami has the highest potential for the spontaneous combustion.