My brother inlaw burned down his garage with a pile of oily rags. Varnish, lacquer and paint thinners are extremely good at starting spontaneous combustion fires. Hanging them out in open air works fine, but make sure pets, kids, and unaware adults can't or won't play with them or put them in a neat pile.

Another solution is to put them in a tightly sealed metal container. They can be purchased for this purpose, but tend to be a little expensive (~ $40). Northern sells a six and a ten gallon version. Less than a new garage and buying all new tools.

> While we're on the subject of insidious phenomena, I hope everyone
> is aware of spontaneous combustion. You know, crumpled up oily rags
> (eg. tung oil, linseed oil, etc.) casually tossed into the garbage
> pail, all of a sudden bursting into flames... For those that don't
> know about this, the cure is to drape the rags over something, preferably
> outdoors, to let the air get at them. Crumple them up, restrict air
> circulation, and the heat from the "drying" oil builds up
> enough to start a fire. Scary stuff, considering many people are completely
> unaware of this, and occasionally pay with their homes, or worse.
> BE CAREFUL!

> Mike Spence