The playground, the playground, the playground's on fire

This is scary.

A playground in Arlington, Texas burst into flames when the composite wood chips, a material widely used in children's playground (and dog parks, too), caught fire. The whole incident was caught on tape by a nearby surveillance camera. Initially, there didn't seem to be a reason why the wood chips caught fire (no added accelerant or spark from a carelessly thrown cigarette, for instance), the wood chips seemed to just spontaneously combust. First the chips smoldered and then moments later the playground was completely engulfed in flames. Imagine if there had been children playing when the chips caught fire.

The chances of this happening are highly unlikely, so don't freak out and stop taking your kids to the playground. High temperature and rotting wood chips are being blamed for this incident. But the next time your town thinks about putting in a new park, maybe you can suggest they use pea gravel for the ground surface.