Finch Started Barn Fire with Cigarette Butt

Be careful with your smokes!

One more reason not to smoke, or at least, to use an ashtray rather than tossing live cigarette butts out the window:

Lit cigarette butts don't cause a "lot" of barn fires but they may cause a few. About 20 years ago I got a call from a man who traced a small fire in his barn back to a bird nest.

A house finch had used a cigarette butt (paper and dried plant matter) to add to the walls of its nest, and apparently it was still lit. It burned about 5 feet around the nest area.

Source: Birdwatching column by Gary Bogue, published in Contra Costa Times, 3/07/2007