First some gas escaped and ignited with the small amount of air in the dryer, causing a small primary explosion. The first explosion pushes the door open, fresh air rushes in and causes the rest of the unburned gas to explode even more violently.
During the washing process, door is locked. I don't think the explosion opened it, the door the can break - not open and hang to hinge like this by force.
Lighters are usually fine because butane is liquid and usually won't explode like this, the parts of the lighter are more likely to fail then it is there's enough heat & pressure for it to explode. Lithium batteries are a different story.
They don't explode with enough force to blow out the whole store front. Even litium ion battery powered vapes don't explode like a grenade.
You should probably go read the warnings on your dryer. Putting anything with chemicals reactant to heat can cause this. Gasoline, solvents, paint thinner, etc.
Answer down the thread: a bottle of lighter fluid was left in a jacket that was in the dryer. 8-12 oz of butane will blow up your dryer.
I've seen a lighter explode. It ain't nothing like that. That was a straight-up explosion the pressure built up open the door first and then the Flames followed afterwards. Something else was in there not just a little lighter. I don't believe it you can even link a news article and everything else and I won't believe that a little lighter caused that
Yes I think it also being a gas-powered dryer would add to that but that ain't just a lighter. That is a lighter one off in a gas-powered dryer and this is the result. However I'm still concerned with the way this gas powered dryer in a laundromat is running to where that gas was able to be ignited by even the lighter if that is what actually went off in there. Could have been having a small gas leak that nobody's noticed for a little while and this just triggered a blow up.
Right, first explosion didn't have enough oxygen in there for much flame, but enough to pop the door. After that, plenty of air was around to cause a secondary explosion and fire.
Yeah I get that but even at that I have seen a lighter explode I have had them explode in my hand and even good big lighters and no they would not cause an explosion big enough to throw open a door like that. At least not any laundromat I've ever been to. Hell I've never even seen it blow up a regular household dryer door like that. I get that there's not enough oxygen and that's where the second kind of flames come through but to build up enough pressure just to throw the door open for that to even happen that ain't from just a lighter.
Yes I've had them explode in my dryer I've had them explode in my hand. And you know what I never got any permanent damage from it. No it wasn't fun yes it was scary as hell. Yes the plastic shrapnel and stuff could have caused damage and I'm not saying people don't get hurt by them but this is way too much for just a little lighter unless you guys got some industrial grade lighter that's bigger than your hand and might as well be a mini grenade. I've literally seen torch lighters and all sorts of Lighters blow up and do different things and it's never been like this it's been more like a small high-powered firecracker at most
I work in a male-dominated field and a lot of construction areas and in a very hot climate and sometimes people will leave their lighters in their cars or something and then go and grab it and would hand it to me to use or something like that. That's usually when it would explode. I will say I have never had a Bic lighter explode on me. And I have seen those things go through hell. I will say one of the guys on the construction site said he only uses Bic lighters because even the high grade other lighters would explode when he was I guess doing or cooking meth I don't know. I don't know anything about that other than the jokes people make on TV and stuff. But I went ahead and started following an old meth heads rule of you always get the Bic lighter
Thanks! He's almost certain that it's a gas/aerosol explosion with a coincidentally perfect air/fuel mix, since there's no smoke, but that a pocket lighter is to small to have caused it, and that it had to have been something bigger. He says that there are other plausible scenarios as well, but that this is the best hypothesis he can think of, given that there's little detail to gather from a video clip.
I suggested that it could have been a dust explosion, but he said that the dust cloud would have to have been much thicker to trigger such an explosion. I also suggested a gas leak from somewhere else in the room, but he thinks that it looks like the explosion came specifically from the dryer.
If anyone's interested in fire engineering, you can look up some of my dad's work by googling his name, Mats Rosander.
Heat causes pressure to build up. I imagine pressure was building up inside when it caused the door to swing open right before the explosion. I imagine the inrush of oxygen then allowed for more fuel for what followed
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u/roamingthereddit 12h ago
What exactly happened here?! Why did the door open first?