American Legion Highway's giant mound o' mulch catches fire early this year

By adamg on Sun, 04/09/2023 - 10:08pm

Mulch fire as seen from BFD drone-mounted thermal imager

BFD's drone-mounted thermal imager helped firefighters direct water to hot spots.

Mt. Mulchmore, Landscape Express's mulch mountain at 425 American Legion Highway in Mattapan, caught fire this afternoon, the Boston Fire Department reports.

Fires are not uncommon at the now swampy pile of gardening brown gold, one of the Boston's largest piles of mulch, but they usually don't happen until later in the season.

Neighborhoods:

Mattapan

Topics:

Fire

Free tagging:

American Legion Highway

Mulch

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Comments

Two mulch piles, one highway.

By Don't Panic on Mon, 04/10/2023 - 12:41am.

Two mulch piles, one highway. There's another ginormous pile near the intersection of American Legion Highway and Canterbury Street off of Morton Street.

You know it’s spring ….

By Lee on Mon, 04/10/2023 - 3:15am.

…. when you start gagging on mulch fumes every time you pass a commercially landscaped dead zone.

I wonder if this was the cause of the noxious smoke that inundated parts of the South End this afternoon.

Car fire

By WalkingTheDog on Mon, 04/10/2023 - 8:23am.

That was a car fire on the Express Way opposite The Pine Street Inn.

Thanks.

By Lee on Mon, 04/10/2023 - 9:30am.

That was were I estimated it was coming from before reading about the mulch fires.

The burning tires and plastics was enough to send people out of the area.

Why don’t they just have an

By anon on Mon, 04/10/2023 - 8:00am.

Why don’t they just have an irrigation system on it daily to keep it some what moist?

Moistness is part of the problem

By SwirlyGrrl on Mon, 04/10/2023 - 10:24am.

Moistness is actually part of the problem when it comes to these industrial-scale operations.

In very thick piles, catching fire isn't a result of drying out - it is the result of such robust microbial activity that it heats to the point of catching fire. This is a spontaneous combustion issue.

Dryness leading to fires is an issue where there is a thin layer of mulch in careless smoker habitats.

So like compost on steroids?

By NoMoreBanks on Tue, 04/11/2023 - 7:55am.

So like compost on steroids? Is there any concern a normal compost pile is going to combust??