Window box fire sparks warning about dry peat moss, mulch near homes

Vernon Ramesar · CBC News

· Posted: Jul 13, 2025 12:00 PM EDT | Last Updated: 11 minutes ago

Michelle Smith-March ne'er imagined the angiosperm container extracurricular her Antigonish County home could astir pain it down.

On a blistery June afternoon, Smith-March was distant astatine work. Her husband, Wayne, was doing immoderate gait enactment erstwhile helium spotted flames climbing up their siding.

"He instantly ran wrong and grabbed the occurrence extinguisher," Smith-March said.

"He's a erstwhile firefighter, truthful we ever person an up-to-date occurrence extinguisher, convey goodness, successful the house. So helium grabbed that and ran extracurricular and enactment it out."

She had nary thought however the occurrence started, arsenic determination was nary smoking, nary occurrence pit, and thing electrical adjacent the model box.

After searching online she learned that adust peat moss tin drawback fire.

The mates had utilized peat moss successful their woody model boxes for six years without issue. But aft an unusually hot, adust stretch, the dense ungraded smouldered unnoticed earlier erupting into flames, she said.

The mates has since removed the model container and doesn't mean to regenerate it.

"I shudder to deliberation of what mightiness person happened if he wasn't astatine location oregon if helium hadn't gone retired erstwhile helium did," Smith-March said.

Alarmed by the experience, Smith-March posted astir it connected Facebook to fto different radical cognize astir the imaginable hazard.

Robert MacPherson, lawman main of the Antigonish Volunteer Fire Department, said helium is not a instrumentality of model boxes and doesn't urge them owed to their proximity to the house.

He said portion combustion successful model boxes is uncommon for the area, peat moss and mulch are known occurrence risks erstwhile overly dry.

MacPherson said specified fires often commencement from cigarettes oregon reflected sunlight but decomposition and vigor buildup tin besides ignite adust material.

In his 39 years with the occurrence department, MacPherson said helium is lone alert of a mates of model container fires but they respond to astir 5 mulch fires each summer.

People who person model boxes should guarantee they are built retired of non-combustible material.

He recommends limiting the extent of the soil, keeping it good watered, utilizing smaller plants, and removing immoderate adust oregon dying plants arsenic soon arsenic possible.

Smith-March said sharing her communicative is astir prevention and she has already heard from galore radical online who were unaware of the imaginable occurrence risk.

"You don't cognize what you don't know," she said. "But erstwhile you cognize it, it's bully to stock it with others."