It was one of the scariest days of my life. My backyard caught on fire and almost burnt the house down. That would threaten my life, as well as my parents’ life. Let me tell you what happened. 

It was scorching that day, up to 95 degrees Fahrenheit, but not high enough to spontaneously combust. This is when a glass ball comes into play. We had a metal pole ornamented with a glass sphere on top. Recently, my mom organized the yard and just left it on the mulch patch in the backyard—that was a terrible decision, you’ll see. 

You might know that a magnifying glass can concentrate the Sun’s energy into a highly localized spot, and the concentration of heat can reach incredibly high temperatures, thus, starting a fire. Apparently, the same situation could occur with the glass sphere. When the glass sphere was left on top of the mulch, it set it on fire due to the extremely high temperature and concentrated high heat. 

When the mulch began to smolder, nobody noticed it. Though we were confused as to why the smoky smell continued, and the smoke detector kept beeping for the whole afternoon, we assumed that our neighbors were having a barbeque. My dad circled the house THREE TIMES to check and didn’t find where the smell came from. He did find a stray cat, though.

When I walked outside, I saw a patch of fuming and charred mulch. Upon closer inspection, I found it was still on fire. I ran as quickly as possible to get a bucket of water and poured it over the burning mulch.  My mom sprinted out to help; we dragged the hose and sprayed it down. 

Fortunately, the fire started 5 feet away from our house and didn't spread. The surrounding area was full of dried leaves. If the glass sphere were accidentally thrown on the leaf pile, the concentrated heat would easily ignite the dry leaves, putting our whole house at risk of being burnt down.