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This is the first time I’ve had a client light one our decks on fire, but what happened is very important and very cool. We built this Mangaris Diamond deck a few years ago and our client was refinishing the deck this week. He didn’t notice that he had missed one of the oily rags on a piece of newspaper sitting on the deck after he finished. Early the next morning when the sun hit it the oily rag heated up and combusted lighting itself, the newspaper and our deck on fire. This is where it gets interesting. A normal cedar or redwood deck would have caught on fire quickly and very likely would have caused the house to burn down as well…with our clients sleeping in the house. Instead our deck put the fire out by itself and allowed virtually no damage to the framing lumber below the deck (see photo 4). Mangaris is a hardwood similar to Ipe or Mahogany. It has a Class A Flame Spread rating (meaning it stops the spread of fire and puts the fire out without any assistance). In fact it has the highest fire rating of any wood. A score below 25 is Class A. Mangaris Red has a score of 20. Mangaris Diamond has a score of 5 (the major difference is due to the overload of tannins, like in wine, that prevent the fire from spreading). These photos show how amazing this kind of hardwood deck can be. This was essentially a perfect Flame Spread test and the deck came through with flying colors…and most importantly my clients are alive and safe and neither their deck nor home were burned down. Instead of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage to fix the repair was simple, inexpensive, and now they already have their deck back. Call us if you have any questions about decking, fire ratings on decks or would like us to also build you a deck like this. Normally I wouldn’t post photos of a damaged deck, but this is something we are very proud of!