Tragic Fire

[Install fire 1]

Wow I see crazy things everyday, that one is in the top ten.

How about diesel soaked wood?
Had a customer burn it in his elmira insert before we replaced it with a regency. Almost set the roof sheating on fire around the chimney!!

Unbelieveable

 

[firefighterjake]

Random thoughts . . .

Huh . . . missed seeing this one . . . and it is only two towns over from where I live . . . well technically one town and one plantation.

Bobbin: Yes . . . it seems as though we see this every year somewhere in Maine . . . I suppose some of it is a learned behavior or perhaps unlearned behavior . . . and some may simply be that folks don't realize the danger with flammable liquids . . . which reminds me . . . sometime someone should remind me to show you my flammable liquid demo that I do in the high school to show students the danger of unseen and unsmelled flammable vapors and how they can travel a good distance from their source, come into contact with an ignition source and then travel back to the source of the fuel.

And you are correct . . . students should learn how to do some basic survival skills such as balancing checkbook (something my wife had to teach me), the importance of savings (something I didn't do when I got out of school) and sex education (which happily it seems as though they are doing now . . . the sexual education . . . when I was a student it was laughable . . . heck I thought I had AIDs when I took the class until my best friend pointed out that since I had not had sex, had never had a blood transfusion and was not an IV drug user that the chances of me having AIDs were pretty slim.


Joe: Don't worry too much . . . yeah there is a risk with a woodstove . . . but you are far more likely to have a cooking fire in your home. What I tell folks is that if you install and maintain your stove properly paying attentiion to clearances, checking the chimney, disposing of the ashes properly, etc.) you can really have a safe fire in your home . . . then again if you have an oil boiler and don't install it correctly, never maintain it, push the reset button a few too many times, etc. . . . you can also have a fire in your home.


Random thoughts . . .

Whenever I hear of someone using a flammable liquid to light a fire I wonder if the real reason they need to use the fuel is because the wood is not seasoned enough to burn without some extra help . . . or if they are simply impatient . . . or they just don't know better.

Forget Mrs. Robinson and the advice to go with plastics . . . I say cardboard . . . don't stuff the firebox full of it, but a cereal box (empty of the Lucky Charms) will burn very well. Personally I think if arsonists were smarter and starting using cardboard boxes instead of accelerants which dogs and lab tests can detect they would get away with more crime. Heck, in the Spring I use some cardboard boxes and can light up a pile of green brush in no time . . . even in the rain . . . really.

I was talking with my Fire Chief last night and told him how I appreciated the fact that he did a thorough check on my woodstove installation even though I am a full time firefighter in a big city . . . he treated me like anyone else . . . and we started talking about installations in our town . . . installations that were not checked by him . . . such as one in a mobile home that consists of single wall stove pipe sticking out of a window . . . he confessed that he really worries that someday we will end up going there . . . and then he told me about a new home where the homeowner installed an older stove too close to the wall and he refused to move it . . . until the insurance company said they would not insure him without a letter from the Fire Chief. Crazy . . . folks just don't think about safety sometimes.

 

[Renovation]

What if you didn't read the manual, or misread the manual, or even took a big risk despite the manual but didn't mean to burn your house down? That's still an accident.

I doubt we can change your mind, so why don't you tell your insurance agent you feel that way, and talk about it? Your agent will be glad you did.

My insurance company doesn't cover negligence, and it keeps my rates low.