Some sort of gas leak or an abundance of hair spray acted as a fuel source, making that entire room an air+fuel mixture (air as the oxidizer). There are a number of ways the hair dryer could have sparked an ignition.
Either the electric motor sparked, or the heating element was hot enough.
Everything has an auto ignition temperature, meaning once a certain temperature is reached, it will combust.
It looks like he had just turned the dryer on, and by the looks of it, the explosion happened right around when it would’ve gotten hot.
My guess is that as soon as the heating element got hot enough, the air/fuel mixture that it was engulfed in was hot enough to combust.
From that point, the flame propagates radially throughout the entire room. Everything would have been drenched in this fuel mixture, like their clothes, causing it to burn more easily.
Also interesting to point out the kindling chain. The fire almost self extinguishes except for the two chairs.
Basically, the air/fuel mixture burned at a certain temperature, which apparently was only hot enough to reach the autoignition temperature of the chairs (some sort of polymer). The third chair had a towel draped over it and didn’t burn because it acted as a heat shield.
great find
