Spontaneous Combustion in Texas

Living in Texas, residents like myself are quite used to the very hot, dry conditions that are conducive to chronic wildfires. It isn't difficult for any Texan to remember when our state hit 100 days of 100 degree weather in 2011. Droughts seem to plague this big, bold state, leading to further risks of wildfire as well as flash flooding. In fact, North Texas is so water poor, it is actually suing the state of Oklahoma for water rights, no joke. Anyway, one of these droughts was in 2006, and I spent that sweltering summer in a rural city North of Dallas called Collinsville. There were several things I remember about that summer. Finding hay for livestock was a big problem. One of the big local headliners detailed about how donkeys were being released to live as feral by their owners who couldn't feed them anymore.

Photo by Paul Ross

Water rationing was also tight. We counted gallons at my home like precious bits of treasure that shouldn't be wasted. Keeping everyone hydrated was all that mattered. Dry lakes and ponds littered the landscape like mirages, cracked clay soil like wrinkles in old, parched skin. Pastures and crops withered away into shriveled piles of crunchy bits waiting to be trampled to dust.

Photo by Wikimedia Commons

One day I was driving to school, stopped behind a long line of drivers at a flashing red traffic light dancing on it's cord above the intersection. Sighing at the setback in my route, I watched my surroundings in boredom. That was when I saw the strangest thing in my life. Suddenly, a small summer breeze graced Texas, and a tumbleweed tangled in a fluff of dried grass in the ditch suddenly puffed to life in a small but impressive display of black smoke and licks of orange.

                                                        Photo by Coydog Outdoors

I could barely believe I just watched this ball of dried stuff spontaneously combust in the midst of the summer heat. I calmly parked my car and dumped my water bottle on the display while it hissed in protest. I just felt lucky I was there to stop it.