Fire risk of bathroom candle

http://ask.metafilter.com/176497/Fire-risk-of-bathroom-candle#2539420 Any unattended candle is a fire hazard.Well, any (lit) unattended candle is fire, which it seems like you and several others in the thread are defining as being equal to "fire hazard". I'm not sure I buy it. What about, for instance, an unattended, lit candle on a buoyant asbestos wafer in the middle of the ocean? That's silly, but it illustrates a weakness in these kinds of statements. I share with the OP's SO a penchant for occasional outbursts of assholish pedantry*, and this shit wouldn't fly with me, even on my most forgiving day. The argument hinges on what a "fire hazard" is. I am in agreement with the many voices in this thread that say "Non-zero chance of fire? Easily remedied by extinguishing candle? Put the candle out, dummy." But that doesn't mean that that makes The Most Sense or anything... doesn't even mean it's correct. "Correct" is important to a pedant, which OP's SO almost assuredly is. Another thing that nobody's talking about is that ATTENDED candles are "fire hazards" by the definition advanced by many people here. The act of lighting or extinguishing the candle is probably much more likely to burn down your house than some [specific] instances [that could easily be hand-picked] of leaving it unattended. Very few voices in this thread are advocating doing away with candles, altogether. In closing. I agree with the OP, and I extinguish candles. We are not, in this thread, determining what is best to do with candles -- or: if we are, we are doing a shit job of it and it's an incoherent mess of half-informed opinion -- what we are doing is arming the OP for an argument with a (potential) hair-splitter or sophist. The handful of folks in this thread who've deduced that have done a good job in this regard. *Mostly under-control and in-remission, thankfully (hopefully?).

My wife loves lighting candles and leaving the room. It's a habit of hers. My habit is to blow out a lit candle anywhere in the house. Yeah the risk of fire may not be obviously high, but at the very least you could get wax spilling where it is not wanted. Classic example - a candle in a pretty red a glass to catch the wax. The candle burnt down to almost nothing, but the flame was enough to heat up the glass and crack it, spilling hot wax all over our tv cabinet. Luckily none on the carpet. Fire danger was admittedly very low, but it does illustrate that you never really know exactly how a candle is going to melt/flame out... Further anecdote: An acquaintance of mine wedged a candle into an upturned milk crate, along with some eucalyptus branches - he was a stoner and enjoyed the pretty flickering shadows of leaves in the candle light. Of course, he left the room, and busied himself elsewhere, and the branches and leaves caught fire, ultimately doing extensive damage to the entire share house, his and his flatmates possessions. No one was hurt thankfully.

Just wanted to share another little bit of anecdata. Our neighbors left a lit candle in their bathroom and were gone for several hours. Before anyone else noticed the smoke, their entire apartment had caught fire. Luckily no lives were lost, but besides losing all their posessions and place to live, they were sued by the insurance company. Not sure how the lawsuit turned out, but it was an enormous, life-changing hassle for them and it all could've been prevented with a single puff of breath.

We have a candle on top of the toilet that is lit for odor control purposes. Another tack to use might be that "odor control" shouldn't require 24/7 diligence -- there are incense, little bowls of matches, potpourri, opening a window -- plenty of other things that don't require a constant unlimited open flame. You're just trying to keep the bathroom reasonably comfortable, not trying to keep demons out.

He wanted to have a "rational discussion" this morning about my stance on candles (don't leave them unattended). It SAYS on candles never to leave them unattended. Seriously, what is up with your husband? If a product has a label that says not to do something on it, that's a pretty good indication that doing that thing is foolhardy. Call your local fire department on speakerphone. They will give your husband what-for.

Do you have a bathtub? Place the lit candle inside the nice empty, ceramic tub and you a good to go. posted by hal_c_on at 2:08 PM on January 23 [+] [!] No other comments. who the hell has a nice ceramic tub? mine is some crappy kind of plastic coated fiberglass. I am sure it would burn with very little encouragement.

Do you have a bathtub? Place the lit candle inside the nice empty, ceramic tub and you a good to go. Are shower curtains not flammable anymore?

Years ago, my devil cat actually caught himself on fire by walking over a lit candle on a table. Luckily, I was in the same room, though not looking at him. I heard a screech, he leaped to the mantle (where he had never been able to jump to before) where he knocked down a huge mirror, and then ran straight for his safe place, which in this case was the bedroom closet. You can imagine what a horrible fiasco this would have been if I hadn't been there to immediately grab a towel and run to smother the flames. Kitty was fine, just had some singed belly hair, no burns. (Vet checked him.) The owner was NOT fine. I never left a candle burning where he could get to it again, even if I was in the house.

Do you have a bathtub? Place the lit candle inside the nice empty, ceramic tub and you a good to go.