How to Use spontaneous combustion in a Sentence

spontaneous combustion

noun

• The fire was trigged in a coal pillar through spontaneous combustion, a not uncommon risk for mines in the Book Cliffs of Utah and Colorado.
  — Brian Maffly, The Salt Lake Tribune, 25 Oct. 2022
• Local officials say the fire is believed to have been caused by spontaneous combustion, which isn’t unusual for a coal mine fire.
  — Sara Ruberg, NBC News, 21 Dec. 2022
• Those conditions are borne out in Dickens’s fiction, which is filled with death of all kinds (murder, drowning, and in once case spontaneous combustion).
  — Josephine Livingstone, The New Republic, 16 Sep. 2020
• Much of the IndyDrum plant was heavily damaged in a May 2014 fire caused by spontaneous combustion of chemicals that had been mixed with sawdust used to clean drums.
  — Rick Barrett, USA TODAY, 20 Dec. 2017
• The fans think Slayer’s act onstage is spontaneous combustion, a spark of wicked enthusiasm setting off a firestorm of malevolence.
  — Bob Larsen, SPIN, 12 Feb. 2022
• It is known for spontaneous combustion, not just combustion.
  — New York Times, 13 Dec. 2020
• Here’s an overdose in one room, and a person stabbed with an ancient sword in another, a snakebite on the second floor of a hotel, a spontaneous combustion, a man in skeleton makeup cackling through a compound fracture.
  — Katie Walsh, chicagotribune.com, 20 Oct. 2020
• When the two chemicals came into contact with one another, there was a spontaneous combustion reaction that would propel the ascent module off of the descent module and into lunar orbit.
  — Alex Hollings, Popular Mechanics, 24 July 2019
• Famous for their electric-blue fire (created by the spontaneous combustion of subterranean gasses) and toxic yellow smoke, the mines would make an interesting photography project, Louie thought.
  — Michael Hardy, Wired, 17 Feb. 2020
• In this delightfully outrageous tale, Holmes and sidekick John Watson must determine how and why four government officials have died through spontaneous combustion.
  — Carol Memmott, Washington Post, 17 Dec. 2022
• Coal is another archetypal example of spontaneous combustion.
  — Caroline Delbert, Popular Mechanics, 9 Jan. 2023

Last Updated: 4 Dec 2024