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Is engine oil flammable?
While changing my car’s oil in the garage today, I knocked over the container and engine oil spilled all under my workbench. I tried mopping it up, but I know I didn’t get it all. It gets seriously hot under there and I’m worried it could ignite. Can engine oil catch fire?
Patrick Price · Updated on
Reviewed by Shannon Martin, Licensed Insurance Agent.
Yikes! That sounds like an awful mess! I do have some good news, though: engine oil is not considered flammable.
Whether a liquid is considered flammable depends on its flashpoint and boiling point. The flashpoint is the ambient temperature at which it will burn, and the boiling point is the temperature at which it boils.
Engine oil’s flashpoint is 302 degrees Fahrenheit, which is far too high to qualify it as flammable. For reference, gasoline has a flashpoint of -40 degrees Fahrenheit. The classifications for flammability breaks down like this:
Anything with a flashpoint higher than 200 degrees Fahrenheit is not considered flammable. Since engine oil’s flashpoint is 302 degrees Fahrenheit, it would need an extremely high ambient room temperature as well as a direct ignition source in order to burn.
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