Preventable Fire Stories

Blames aquarium heater for fire that resulted in $1M in damages

By David Hanners
dhanners@pioneerpress.com

Posted: 02/21/2009 12:01:00 AM CST

The defendant: Petco, the big pet-store chain. The claim: A faulty Petco aquarium heater caused a fire at Medtronic’s Columbia Heights campus in 2007, resulting in more than $1 million in property damage and lost business.

Medtronic spokesman Chuck Grothaus said the company didn’t want to talk about the case filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis.

…Kalen Smith, a spokeswoman for San Diego-based Petco, said she was unaware of the suit and couldn’t comment on it. The chain has 950 stores in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. It has 15 stores in the Twin Cities area.

……In its suit, Medtronic claims the Petco aquarium heater caused a fire at the company’s facility at 800 53rd Ave. N.E. in Columbia Heights on May 20, 2007. The suit doesn’t say what kind of heater it was, how old it was or where it was bought — or whether it even was being used to heat an aquarium.

….The bulk of the damage, he said, was caused by water from the building’s sprinkler system, which ran several minutes before it was shut off.

“There were huge amounts of water,” the chief said. “This was on the second or third floor, and the water was running out the room, down the corridors, down the stairs, down the elevator shaft, and it was in the basement. We were in the basement and we were sloshing through water on the floor.

“We figure the sprinkler was probably running for 15 or 20 minutes before we got the call,” Gorman said. “The fire damage was very little.”

The fire department’s report lists it as an “electrical wiring/equipment” fire, and it doesn’t estimate the dollar value of damage. Medtronic’s lawsuit puts the damage at more than $1 million.

full story at LINK

Sooner or later an insurer is going to recognize the value of my power strip for reducing risk of sprinkler damage from smoking appliances.

My power strip could make some of these temporary barn setups safer.

The barn at 797 Chestnut Road in the Town of Knowlton caught fire at about 7p.m. Tuesday night and re-ignited hours later.

…He says investigators say the blaze may have been sparked by two electrical tank heaters in the barn.

Chief Rheinschmidt says the home owner plugged them in to keep their animals water from freezing…

“When we got there about 2/3 of the barn was already gone. The roof was in, the two sides had collapsed and there wasn’t much left to save, ” says Chief Rheinschmidt.

…”We had a brand new tractor

In addition to the farming equipment and tools they lost most of the feed

full story

If mounted in the room above the baseboard heater, my power strip might have sensed the smoke and shut the heater off before the fire erupted.

Syracuse, New York (WSYR-TV) - Two firefighters were treated for minor burns while battling a fire Monday afternoon at a home at 4854 South Salina Street in Syracuse.

Investigators say the fire appears to have started when a combustible children’s toy ignited after it was left too close to an electric baseboard heater.

A mother and her two children live at the home, but nobody was there at the time of the fire; investigators say Jennifer Myers had left the house to pick up her six- and seven-year-old children from school when the fire began.

LINK

My power strip could shut the heater off at the first sign of smoke.  Preventing damage, saving lives, saving insurance claims for liability and loss of business.  Preventing sprinkler damage. 

Room fire prompts hotel evacuation

Maryland City - The Ramada Inn in Maryland City was evacuated yesterday after a fire broke out in one of the rooms.

The two-alarm fire caused about $60,000 in damages to the room and its contents, but no one was injured in the blaze in the 3400 block of Laurel Fort Meade Road, county Fire Department officials said.

Anne Arundel and Prince George’s counties

Anne Arundel County Fire Department Capt. Debbie Bowen said the fire was caused by a malfunctioning heater in the wall. The fire was contained to the single room, but there was water and smoke damage to several other rooms, she said.

full story at LINK

	Buy Photo
	Staff photos/Lindsay Blake - Firefighters respond to structural fire in the 1400 block of South Main Street Friday afternoon. An faulty electric water dish inside dog kennel is said to blame for the fire.

An electric water dish, inside a large dog kennel, started a structural fire in the 1400 block of South Main Street Friday afternoon.The Council Bluffs Fire and Rescue assistant chief Jeff Hutcheson said crews responded to a call around 4:30 p.m. at AA Pallet. Two dogs were removed by animal control before firefighters could put the fire out.

Hutcheson said the fire began after straw started fire, from the electric water dish, that extended to a storage trailer.

more at LINK

My power strip, if mounted above the heater in an area sheltered from rain and wind, would have shut that heater off, possibly before the straw ignited.

Those could be wired into my SmokeShutoff power strip.  Would save a lot of claims, and maybe some lives.

A baseboard heater caused a fire that destroyed one room of a Myrtle Beach motel and displaced five families, officials said.

The fire was reported at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday at the Aquarius Family Motel building No. 4 on 12th Avenue North. When firefighters arrived flames were visible from the third floor roof of the building near Chester Street.

more at LINK

Preventable if my power strip turns off the heater at the first sign of smoke, before the blanket ignites  Fumes may have rendered her unconscious so she didn’t wake up when the smoke alarm sounded.  My power strip would have allowed the smoke to clear and it would have kept sounding an alarm until someone physically reset the unit.

The cause of a three-alarm fire that killed a Palmer woman on Thursday was determined to be the result of bedding that was too close to a baseboard heater, said the State Fire Marshal and Palmer Fire Department.

The victim, 44-year-old xxxxxxx M. yyyyyy, could not escape her apartment in a four-unit building on Commercial Street because of the intensity of the flames, police said.

“Investigators believe that the blanket came in contact with the electric baseboard heater and that is how the fire started,” said Alan J. Roy, chief of the Palmer Fire Department, in a statement.

more at LINK

My power strip mounted on the wall above the electrical baseboard heater would prevent damage from this sort of malfunction or any materials coming in contact with the heater and causing smoke or fire damage.

Munster Elementary Public School will be OPEN tomorrow,Tuesday, October 21, 2008, for grades 1 through 5.  The school was closed today due to smoke damage caused by a fire in the junior and senior kindergarten classroom.  It is believed that the fire was electrical in nature; a baseboard heater malfunctioned. The fire was put out quickly by the school’s custodian, however smoke damage did occur requiring today’s school closure.

 The kindergarten program will NOT be operating tomorrow as clean-up operations will continue.  The parents of those students impacted by the closure will be contacted individually to alert them of the situation. The school houses approximately 140 students from junior kindergarten to grade 5.  It is located in Munster.  LINK

BEN HEATHER/ID 130380

GUTTED: A downstairs flat in Fernhill was gutted by a fire caused by an electric heater.

more at LINK

Glad nobody was hurt.  My power strip would have shut off that heater at the first sign of smoke, either from malfunction or something coming into contact with it, possibly preventing this fire.

Deputy Berkeley Fire Chief Gil Dong said.

No one was injured in either fire, Dong said. The only casualty was a cat, which died in the apartment fire on Derby, he said.

Firefighters arriving at the Derby Street fire found heavy fire and smoke coming out of the building. It was caused by a quilt placed too close to an electric heater, Dong said.

more at LINK

The fire caused an estimated $100,000 damage to the structure, he said.

my power strip would have shut off that heater before the quilt ignited.  and my power strip has a 90dB alarm.