(KMDL-FM) Picture it: it's a warm, sunny South Louisiana day. You pull into your spot at work, you grab your personal items, and head into the office. Oh, you forgot your clear plastic water bottle, but that will be okay in the console, or will it?
Almost every car in South Louisiana has two things in the console: a phone charger cord and a water bottle of some kind. If you are like me and live life on the cheap and buy the low-budget clear plastic water bottles, you could be putting yourself and your car in danger on every sunny summer day.
The Weird Way Your Water Bottle Can Become a Fire Risk in Your Car's Console
What I am about to describe to you is rare, and conditions have to almost be perfect, but judging by the scorched circle on the seat of my car, I do have personal verification that the process can start quicker than you think, even though it might take a long time for full combustion to occur.
If you were looking for video proof that such science could occur, here you go. And you might think that was just YouTube magic. Well, it wasn't.
The other day I left a clear plastic water bottle sort of propped up in the cup holder of my car. It was sitting higher than in the cup holder and at an angle. I didn't think anything of it until I returned to my vehicle and noticed that the sun's rays had shown through the bottle and been magnified into a focused beam of high-energy, high-heat sunlight.
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Fortunately, the sun's angle was only "hot" for a little while, but it did get hot enough to put a scorch mark on the seat. The bottom line is this: yes, leaving a clear plastic water bottle with water in your car can become a fire hazard.
It's very unlikely, but I would have never guessed. I figured the bottle would have melted before a blaze broke out. But when you think about just how hot it gets inside a car and how hot metal objects like seatbelt buckles can get. It seems beyond plausible to me.
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By the way, even if you aren't concerned about reflective fires, you might want to put those bottles and cups out of the direct rays of the sun in your car. That heat can't be good for the plastic coatings that many of them have. But why do you care? You grew up drinking out of a garden hose; you'll be fine.
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Gallery Credit: Stephen Lenz