Giant pile of corn cobs spontaneously ignites itself
Only in Illinois, people. Only in Illinois.
When you have that many corn cobs sitting on top of each other, a little bit of moisture combined with the corn cob’s chemistry can cause a fire.
St. Joseph-Stanton Fire Chief Russell Chism explaining how a pile of corn cobs spontaniously combusted Tuesday morning in rural St. Joseph.
Click here for the News Gazette‘s coverage on this breaking story.
10 comments
And don’t forget that just yesterday…. (http://news-gazette.com/news/local/2010/01/05/truck_carrying_hogs_overturns_on_i-57_snarling_traffic):
“CHAMPAIGN – Two veterinarians and some students from the University of Illinois veterinary teaching hospital were called to help with a truck loaded with hogs that overturned west of Champaign.“
“The crash caused both lanes of southbound Interstate 57 to be closed for more than three hours Monday while people rescued the hogs and cleaned up the scene.“
Tony C.
The NPR bit today explained that the Vets were primarily there to put down the hogs that were too injured to walk out of the truck.
Tony C.
PS - Spontaneously. ;)
Thanks for the spell-check, Tony. And Caleb, this could have easily happened in Iowa, too. In fact, I’d say it’d be more likely.
HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHA. That is all.
Au contraire my good friend. If you read the Gazoo article, you will see that the corn cobs in question in fact hail from Iowa, which suggests that Illinois has become a repository for Iowa corn cobs. My guess is that, while Iowa has more bushels to the acre, we have more cobs to the vacant lot (keep in mind that I’m basing this all on conjecture and foundationless bravado).
Caleb, not to be pedantic here, but if I’m understanding the Gazette correctly the cobs themselves are local - they’re just owned by an Iowa company.
He said the cob pile is owned by Iowa-based Best Cob, which stockpiles cobs from seed corn harvested locally by Pioneer at the St. Joseph site.
I certainly don’t claim to understand people from Iowa, but why would they export their cobs to us?
Sorry, I should have put the Gazette quotation in quotation marks:
“He said the cob pile is owned by Iowa-based Best Cob, which stockpiles cobs from seed corn harvested locally by Pioneer at the St. Joseph site.“
Looks like you’re right Mark. Thanks for crushing all my dreams.
Pain
Soybean aphids and spontaneously combusting corn. 70% of US corn are gmo and 90% of our soybeans are. Come an’ get me unpaid Monsanto lawyers.
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