Inspector DiFraneo also testified to that fact. Plaintiffs proceeded on a theory that the known risk of a mulch fire caused by the careless disposal of smoking materials imposed a duty on the landlord to address it, and that defendant’s failure to address that risk caused the fire to spread to the building. As noted, there was sufficient evidence from which the jury could reasonably conclude that defendant’s failure to act caused the fire to spread quickly to the building. The jurors were also entitled to rely on their “common knowledge of the nature of fire” in determining what facilitated the spread of the fire in terms of the mulch’s proximity to other flammable materials on the building. Levesque, 436 Mass. at 454, 766 N.E.2d 50; see also Gates, 255 Mass. at 302, 151 N.E. 320 (<HOLDING>). Here, the Court instructed the jury that
holding no municipal liability in light of city administrators ultimate authority to approve or rescind departmental personnel decisions despite evidence that the fire chief was in charge of establishing rules regula tions policies and procedures for the operation of the fire department holding that the operation of the established laws of nature in the familiar forms of combustion the tendency of fire to persist when once started in wood and the effects of wind on fire are matters of common knowledge holding that obligation to pay mortgage on home was satisfied by payment of fire insurance proceeds where husband maintained fire insurance policy holding that the disciplinary rules of the code of professional responsibility are not laws of the state of texas for purposes of statute which excludes the admission of evidence obtained in violation of law holding that the standard fire policy and a broader homeowners policy were so intertwined that the prescriptive period in the standard fire policy applied to nonfire perils