……
Muskogee Fire Department Assistant Fire Chief Wayne Shiew described the damage as “major” and included smoke and heat damage to the interior.
“They won’t be able to move back in here,” he said.
The home had a kitchen, living room, two bathrooms and three bedrooms.
“We believe the fire was electrical in nature,” Shiew said. “It seems to have started where a charger for her cordless phone was plugged in.
…. more at LINK
According to Tracey Angel, director of Housing and Conference Services, the power strip was approved by Underwriters Laboratories, a product safety testing and certification firm.
“The fire ignited from the cell phone charger spread to the carpet area, chair and the desk,” Angel said.
“Fortunately, the student was not in the room when the fire started. The smoke detector and sprinkler immediately extinguished the fire, but the sprinkler system affected the rooms downstairs.”
The smoke detector set off sprinklers in three second floor suites, affecting the rooms below and those on the terrace level.
my power strip might have prevented all this smoke and sprinkler damage. and the fire could have been much worse.
The owners of a warehouse which recently had a serious fire has decided to sue a phone network and handset manufacturer after they decided that an overheating cellphone battery was the cause of the blaze.
Anderson Management, which manages the property in Wichita says that the fire last January caused some US$640,000 in damage to the warehouse and US$535,000 in damage to the property of Anderson’s tenants, Javier and Monica Sacco, who used the building to store processed foods for distribution.
In the lawsuit, filed with the 18th Judicial District Court, Sedgwick County in Kansas - Anderson Management says that a cellphone was left connected to the phone charger overnight by the tenants, and it was this which overheated and caused the fire to start.
The lawsuit names the mobile network, Sprint, along with Sanyo and Kyocera as well as the tenants, the Saccos who are alleged to have left the phone on charge.(article is wrong. tenants not listed as defendants.)
Full story at LINK
I imagine the property insurer wants to pass the damage claim on to Sanyo, Sprint and Kyocera. Too bad there’s no insurer pro-active enough to get my power strip developed and avoid the damage claims in the first place. My power strip, mounted above the charging setup, would have shut off the chargers at the first sign of smoke.
Chargers are not to be trusted. Maybe my power strip wouldn’t have prevented this fast flameout, but in unattended recharging setups, my power strip can at least act to shut off the charger and sometimes prevent this damage or injuries.
More at LINK
Fire Sends Teen to Hospital
Reported by: David Shepherd
Sunday, Nov 30, 2008 @10:09pm EST
An 18 year old male was taken to the hospital with minor smoke inhalation.
The Terre Haute Fire Department says someone in the house plugged in a cell phone charger just minuets before the room went up in flames. the fire was contained to that bedroom. Everything in the room is being concidered a total loss and there is water damage to the downstairs of the home.
Terre Haute Fire said the family did not have renter’s insurance. The Red Cross is putting the family up in a hotel for the night.
The drama unfolded yesterday morning at Linzi Donnelly’s Grange Park home, when a phone charger overheated and caught fire in the downstairs conservatory.
The fire triggered a smoke alarm – but the 27-year-old’s attempt to flee was thwarted when she could not get out of the locked front door, as the keys were in the conservatory.
A total of 20 fire officers attended the scene. Two firefighters were sent inside and quickly discovered and extinguished the fire.
The property was then cleared of smoke by giant mechanical fans.
Most people leave their cell phone charger plugged into the wall, even when the phone’s in their pocket or purse. They don’t know how many chargers start fires.
Meanwhile, in another house fire in North Potomac Friday night, Piringer says damage is estimated at about $225,000. He says it appears a cell phone charger was left plugged in, while the family was out. No one was injured in that blaze.
Hi to all my old friends from Hot Shoppes #162 and #95!
MILLSBORO — Delaware fire officials are blaming a malfunctioning cell phone charger for a blaze that caused $30,000 damage to a mobile home.
The fire was reported about 1 p.m. Thursday in the 26000 block of Mount Joy Road. No one was home during the fire and no injuries were reported.
The state fire marshal’s office says the cell phone charger ignited wall covering in a bedroom.
more at LINK
It’s criminal that the government doesn’t provide a database telling us which brands of chargers are causing these fires. They’ve got databases on all our phone calls, everything we do, but somehow a simple database of what brand of devices causes fires is just too complex or intrusive for them.
Fire hit a bakery compound, eating through the house of the family that owned it, and burning an estimated P200,000 worth of property in Bacolod City yesterday, the Bureau of Fire Protection, said.
Fire fighters from the BFP, the Amity and Chamber volunteer brigades, trooped to the compound of the Bacolod Bakerite at Galo Street, Bacolod, as thick black acrid smoke billowed out of the area at about 1 p.m. yesterday.
Bacolod BFP deputy fire marshal, Insp. Publio Ploteña, placed the damage to the house owned by Henry Yap at around P200,000. The flames were put out about 25 minutes after they received the call at about 1:20 p.m. yesterday.
Ploteña said that an overheated cellphone charger at a room in the second floor of the house triggered the flames that also gutted the quarters of the family’s helpers.
more at LINK
The public should be aware of the dangers of leaving cell phone chargers plugged in, along with all other consumer electronics with chargers. If statistics were kept on the number of these fires, I bet it would be staggering. Manufacturers are “fortunate” there is no agency keeping a database of fires caused by electronics, searchable by manufacturer and model.
I’ve blogged 84 fires in the news caused by chargers. No telling how many other “undetermined cause” fires were actually caused by chargers. Manufacturers keep pushing the limits of the technology trying to improve charge times and battery capacity, and these fires result.
GLASCO - An accidental fire caused serious heat and water damage to a home on Turkey Point Drive Tuesday morning. Two family cats died as a result of the fire.
Glasco Fire Chief Anthony Gallo said there were no injuries in the two-alarm blaze, which started at approximately 7:15 a.m. Gallo believed that a family of four lived in the home, but said only the father was home at the time of the blaze. The name of the family was not available.
Gallo said fire authorities are not positive what caused the fire in the home, a single-family wooden structure, but were not ruling out an electrical problem.
According to the Ulster County Arson Task Force, a cell phone charger was found at the place of origin of the fire.
MARK TAYLOR/Waikato Times
MELTED MOMENTS: The cellphone which burnt a hole in the pillow of Hamilton teen Olivia Bell as it was charging overnight.
more at LINK
First Mobile Hamilton regional manager Erin Wilson said leaving a phone to charge in a pillow case was “the worst thing you can possibly do”.
You can’t trust chargers. My power strip mounted above them can make them a bit safer, shutting them off at the first sign of smoke.