mulching flaming leaves

[John *.?-!.* cub owner]

With Fall rapidly charging at us I thought I would remind those of you who use lawnmowers to mulch or rake your leaves to be careful. I used to have an 18hp White riding mower that had the muffler mounted low in front. Leaves would pile up in the lower part of my yard, and I would use the White to keep blowing them toward the fence, and mulching as I went. After working for a few minutes I noticed smoke and flames coming out my mower discharge, and headed out into the middle of the yard away from the leaves. The leaves were too deep to go under the deck in places and they had packed in against the front mounted muffler and finally ignited from the heat. The blades were sucking the smoke and flames under the front of the deck and blowing them out the grass discharge. I shut it off and ran for the fire extinguisher in the shed, but by that time it had pretty well burned up the leaves. I was lucky, the only damage was a little discolored paint on the deck and one damaged belt. If I had realized sooner what was happening, I could have left the deck running and not have even had that damage.