West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service is urging businesses using tumble dryers to take extra safety precautions to prevent fires.
The warning comes following a fire at a city centre hotel in Chichester in the early hours of Monday morning that took more than 50 firefighters to extinguish.
Investigations into the cause of the blaze, which started in a utility area at the rear of an adjacent restaurant and spread up into the hotel, found that rape-seed oil residue on tea towels and linen is likely to have caused them to self-ignite inside the restaurant's tumble dryer.
 
West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service's Fire Investigation Officer at the incident, Mark Hayter, explained: - "The circumstances of this fire are unusual, but certainly not unheard of, we’ve attended fires started in this way before. It happens when vegetable and animal-fat based oils are not fully washed out of laundry. If materials with oil residue are heated and then left in a tumble dryer, or are folded into piles or stacks before they are cool, there is a risk of self-combustion.
In West Sussex there are a vast number of businesses including care homes, salons, pubs and restaurants that wash and tumble dry tea towels and other laundry on site. We would urge them to take some simple steps to reduce the risk of a fire like this occurring within their premises.
It is really important to wash materials that have absorbed oil at a high temperature and to use the right detergent. You should make sure the dryer is left to complete its full cycle, which usually includes a cool-down phase towards the end. We'd also strongly advise people not to pile or stack laundry while it is still hot."