Fiberboard, self-heating

Forest products industries know that temperature increases in piles of sawdust and bark. In pulp and paper mills, self-heating develops in amassed tree chips. Paper rolls stacked hot tend to self-heat, as occasionally do stored bales of waste paper. The wood-base panel products particleboard, hardboard, and fiberboard self-heat after being stacked too hot in the factory. Where in structures the framing lumber, wood-base panels, and lignocellulosic insulation is heated by items such as steam pipes, temperatures tend to rise above that of the heat source. 

Among lignocellulosic panel products, fiberboard (called fiber insulation board in earlier decades) seems to have caused more fires than the denser products hardboard, particleboard, and plywood. Fiberboard self-heats more because it conducts less of the generated heat out of the... 

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