At least one of the plastic totes were on the ground. Several more were located in a rack above. The fire melted the side of one of the plastic tote located on the ground (due to cardboard boxes of ?? burning in front of it) thereby spilling used motor oil into the fire which then erupted. Prior to the side of the tote melting the fire was being knocked down with a garden hose and would have been put out. As with many large scale losses no single item created this total loss. Also, had the shop been a seperate building from the machinery storage the loss would have been much less.

I am simply suggesting that the setup that you, I and many others have needs evaluation. If you are comfortable with that much flammable liquid in plastic containers that's certainly your business. If insurer's begin having too many large dollar claims we could eventually be required to meet existing NFPA regulations for storage of flammable liquids in workplaces in order to even get insurance. If that happens most if not all plastic containers with flammable liquids will be gone from farm machine shops and machinery storage areas unless we are willing to put in specialized fire protection and/or containment systems.