According to a report in the Boulder County News, massage therapist Alison Rothman’s home caught fire earlier this year when a laundry basket of massage sheets ignited in her kitchen. Rothman had just removed the sheets from her dryer and left them in the laundry basket when she left the house. Normally she lets the sheets air out a bit, but she didn’t have time to do that on this day.
“I came home to my house on fire,” says Rothman. “The combination of heat from the dryer and being in my hot, sunny kitchen caused the sheets to spontaneously combust.”
Boulder fire marshal Dave Lowrey explained that the oils used in massages are absorbed into the sheets, which can then cause the oils to ignite. “If the sheets are wadded up and that heat can’t dissipate, it heats until it heats the sheets to basically their ignition temperature, then they catch fire,” Lowrey says.
“I’ve done massage for 15 years and never in my life thought that would have happened,” says Rothman. She hopes sharing her experience will help other massage therapists avoid the same thing happening to them.
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