Toddler dies after being pulled from Clifton fire - The Delaware County Daily Times : Serving Delaware County, PA(DelcoTimes.com)

Toddler dies after being pulled from Clifton fire - The Delaware County Daily Times : Serving Delaware County, PA(DelcoTimes.com)
CLIFTON HEIGHTS — A 16-month-old baby boy rescued by firefighters from a burning row home early Friday in the borough later died of apparent smoke inhalation, police said.

Borough police initially arrived about 3:25 a.m. and observed heavy smoke and fire inside the home at 120 W. Berkley Ave., said police Chief Walter Senkow.

The father, identified as Thomas Pierce, and two older children were able to escape the blaze. The child’s mother was at work at the time, Senkow said.

Pierce and neighbors attempted to save the child, but were thwarted by heavy smoke. Firefighters gained entry and found the child in a crib in a second-floor bedroom, according to Senkow and borough fire Chief Jim Kneass.

Tracy to Fire Dept -- Thanks for Saving My Fish! - TMZ.com

Tracy to Fire Dept -- Thanks for Saving My Fish! - TMZ.com
Tracy Morgan just released this statement regarding the fire at his NY apartment:

"A fire broke out in my Manhattan apartment this morning, apparently starting with a lamp attached to my fish tank. The sprinklers promptly activated and the NYFD came by to make sure it was contained.. Fortunately, the fire did not spread and no one in the building was injured -- even the fish are okay. My thanks to the New York Fire Department for their quick action."

Firefighters: Goats May Be to Blame for Iowa House Fire

FOXNews.com - Firefighters: Goats May Be to Blame for Iowa House Fire - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News:

"NORWALK, Iowa — A group of goats may have started a fire that destroyed a home in central Iowa, firefighters said.

The fire broke out early Tuesday near Norwalk. Three people in the house escaped unharmed.

John Hadley said his cat woke up him up, and he saw smoke coming from a ceiling. Hadley then woke up his ailing mother and her companion and got them out of the house.

The fire may have been started by some goats kept in a shed attached to the rear of the house, Assistant Northern Warren County Fire Chief Kevin Dingman said.

He said a space heater was kept in the shed to keep the goats warm, and the goats may have knocked it over, starting the fire.

The goats and a family dog were rescued, but a cat was missing."

The goats, started it, and the cat woke them up and the dog was saved....Despite the evil plot by the goats.

Santa Ana firefighters rescue elderly woman from flames | fire, home, firefighters, house, caswell - News - OCRegister.com

Santa Ana firefighters rescue elderly woman from flames | fire, home, firefighters, house, caswell - News - OCRegister.com

The woman had collapsed from the heat of a nearby mobile-home fire.
By DOUG IRVING
The Orange County Register
Comments 0 | Recommend 1

SANTA ANA – Firefighters rescued an elderly woman who had collapsed in the heat and smoke of a nearby mobile-home fire on Sunday morning – the start of a busy 26 hours for Santa Ana fire crews.

Hours later, a devotional candle burning in an apartment bedroom touched off a fire that displaced 16 people. And hours after that, another fire caused by a candle swept through a house and sent one man to the hospital with burns.

Fire investigators do not believe the three fires were related, Capt. Chris Caswell said.

The first call came shortly before 2:30 a.m. on Sunday. Firefighters arrived at the Continental mobile-home park in the 200 block of Monaco Drive to find one home already filled with smoke and fire.

One of the firefighters saw that an elderly woman – apparently trying to escape the smoke and heat – had collapsed in the doorway of the mobile home next door. Fire crews knew the woman from previous medical calls, and knew that she used a wheelchair or walker.

The firefighter pulled the woman from the building and put her in a truck. She was taken to the hospital to be checked out; Caswell did not know what her condition was or whether she had been released.

Another firefighter was also treated for heat exhaustion, Caswell said.

That fire caused $200,000 in damage to the mobile home and also burned a 1999 Ford Expedition parked in a nearby car port. Fire investigators believe it started when an electrical plug failed.

The next call took fire crews to a two-story home in the 1400 block of West Civic Center that had been converted to apartments. They found an upstairs bedroom burning when they arrived around 7 p.m. Sunday.

Firefighters knocked down that fire in about eight minutes, Caswell said. But the Red Cross had to find another place for the 16 people who lived in the house to spend the night.

Investigators believe a devotional candle caught a mattress on fire, starting the blaze that caused an estimated $100,000 damage to the house and $50,000 damage to its contents.

The third call came in a few minutes before 4:30 a.m. on Monday, also the apparent result of a candle. Firefighters arrived at a single-story house in the 2300 block of West Anahurst Street to find dark, heavy smoke pouring from a bedroom window.

A man who was sleeping in that bedroom told firefighters he awoke to find that a candle he had left burning near his computer had caught the room on fire. He threw a blanket over the flames, then escaped with five other adults who were in the house.

The man was hospitalized with first- and second-degree burns, Caswell said. He did not know the man's condition.

That fire caused $200,000 in damage to the house and $50,000 damage to its contents, and displaced the six people who were living there.

Contact the writer: 714-704-3777 or dirving@ocregister.com

Jumbo snow globes + sunlight = consumer hazard - Yahoo! News

Jumbo snow globes + sunlight = consumer hazard - Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Some 7,000 jumbo-sized snow globes were recalled by Hallmark Cards Inc. because the holiday decorations can act as a magnifying glass when exposed to sunlight and ignite nearby combustible materials, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said on Tuesday.

The snowman-shaped snow globes were sold in October and November at Hallmark Gold Crown stores nationwide for about $100 each.

The consumer agency said Hallmark has received two reports of the snow globes igniting nearby materials but no injuries have been reported.

Consumers who bought the snow globes, which measure 11 by 12 by 17 inches (28 by 30 by 43cm), should immediately remove them from exposure to sunlight and return to a Hallmark Gold Crown store for a full refund.

Details about the recall were posted at the government agency's web site at: http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml09/09073.html.

(Reporting by Julie Vorman; Editing by Bill Trott)

Quick! Better get Frosty out of the sun!

Oops: Homeowner starts fire while clearing cobwebs with blowtorch - On Deadline - USATODAY.com

Oops: Homeowner starts fire while clearing cobwebs with blowtorch - On Deadline - USATODAY.com

Today's tip: Don't use a blowtorch to remove cobwebs from your house.

That advice comes from Coweta Fire Investigator James Gantt, who spoke with The Times-Herald after a Georgia man set his house on fire while using an open flame to clear spiders' webs from the exterior eaves.

"This was an unfortunate accident," Gantt tells the paper. "Nobody was hurt, but it could have been a lot worse."

Cobwebs, can, in fact, be beautiful. Check out the informative video below.

Hot Flashes

Household heating fire safety cartoon from the NFPA. 1:01

Body found in bedroom of burning duplex in Santa Ana | fire, caswell, firefighters, santa, bedroom - News - OCRegister.com

Body found in bedroom of burning duplex in Santa Ana | fire, caswell, firefighters, santa, bedroom - News - OCRegister.com
SANTA ANA – Firefighters battling a duplex fire this afternoon discovered a body in a bedroom, authorities said.

The fire was reported at 12:28 p.m. after neighbors heard an explosion at a single-story duplex at 3502 West Calle del Sur, near Jackson Street, said Santa Ana Fire Department Capt. Chris Caswell.

The fire was under control in seven minutes with the help of 23 firefighters, Caswell said.

Firefighters discovered the body in the bedroom, where the fire is believed to have started, Caswell said.

Fire arson investigators and Santa Ana police are trying to determine the cause and origin of the fire, Caswell said.

NFPA's New Electrical Safety PSA

Tidy Up! Banned Ikea Commercial

Seriously...housekeeping is a big fire prevention issue!

Fire investigators warn of the dangers of improperly installed wood-burning stoves

Fire investigators warn of the dangers of improperly installed wood-burning stoves - Michigan News, Updates, Photos & Video | Detroit, Lansing - MLive.com

VANDALIA -- A Michigan State Police investigator who has probed three fatal house fires this year sparked by wood-burning stoves said residents should always have the devices installed and regularly maintained by a professional to ensure safety.

Two young brothers in Cass County who perished Monday in a fire Monday morning were the fourth and fifth person this year in southwestern Michigan to die in a fire that Sgt. Scott LeRoy has determined was caused by a wood stove. LeRoy said improper installation or maintenance is often a factor when wood stoves are to blame for a blaze.

I think one of the contributing factors with these (recent fires) is ... homeowners or friends are installing or reinstalling wood stoves and chimneys and, quite frankly, making errors," LeRoy said.

For example, the sergeant said a recently installed wood stove that sparked a Feb. 16 fire in Delton and killed 35-year-old Jason Hoffman had been improperly placed on a wood floor instead of a non-combustible surface such as bricks. A new stove was also blamed for a Feb. 10 fire that killed 84-year-old Grace Bower and her son, Donald Bower, 60, at their Burr Oak home.

In the fire Monday that killed 6-year-old Dale Baldwin and 13-year-old Scott Baldwin, LeRoy said a wood stove that was used as a primary heat source "most likely" was the cause.

He said the boys' father, Leonard Baldwin had recently performed some maintenance on the stove's chimney, but Tuesday police did not know if those improvements were a contributing factor in the wood stove igniting the blaze.

Brad Friedt, owner of Friedt Enterprises in Kalamazoo, which specializes in wood stove sales and maintenance, said homeowners should have the pipes of their wood stove and chimney checked monthly and cleaned yearly. Friedt said the most common issue his company finds during wood stove inspections is improper clearance around stove and chimney pipes.

In some instances, he said company officials have inspected stoves where chimney pipes traveling through a ceiling of a home butt up against wood in the attic area and present a potential fire hazard.

Friedt said pipe traveling from a stove up to a ceiling should have an 18-inch clearance all around and a two-inch clearance is needed from where pipe travels from the ceiling through a home's rooftop.

The fire Monday gutted most of the house at 60969 Storey Road. Penn Township firefighters responded to the blaze at about 12:25 a.m. and found Dale and Scott dead inside after extinguishing the flames.

Leonard Baldwin, his girlfriend Billie Jo Allen and six other children made it out of the house safely. Alyia Baldwin, 7, was flown to Bronson Methodist Hospital in Kalamazoo, where she was listed in good condition Tuesday morning.

LeRoy said the family slept in the single-story portion of the house where the wood stove was located. Dale and Scott were found by firefighters in the dining room of the house, which adjoined to the living room where they slept, he said.

By the time one of the Baldwin children spotted the fire early Monday, LeRoy said "the fire was already well involved" and family members who made their way to safety "barely got out."

LeRoy said police found one to two smoke detectors in the house, but none had batteries. He said police continue to investigate the blaze, but have no indications of anything suspicious and plan to close the investigation, pending the results of autopsies of Dale and Scott.

Five Children Die in Ark House Fire

Five children who were asleep in the upstairs of a small Bentonville home died early Tuesday in a fire that swept through the home.

Fire Chief Dan White says the children's parents were in a downstairs bedroom and were awakened by a smoke alarm, but could not reach the children because of the smoke and flames.

The parents escaped from the blaze, which was reported at 1:22 a.m.

White says the fire appears to be accidental, but police served a search warrant on the home later today based on items officers saw during the initial call. Among the items seized were a space heater and a small amount of suspected methamphetamine. Officers say there was not enough meth on hand to indicate there was a lab in the home.

The children were identified as 13-year-old Kristan Frazier, 11-year-old Kimberly Frazier, 9-year-old Katelyn Mahmens, 8-year-old Kaila Frazier, and 5-year-old Kiya Frazier.

Authorities identified the father as 33-year-old Jamie Dale Frazier, and the mother as 27-year-old Kerry A. Mahmens Frazier.

The bodies of the children were being sent to the state Crime Laboratory in Little Rock for autopsy. Police say the items seized during the search will also be sent to the lab to be analyzed.

Fire officials described the house as 11/2 stories, with a very narrow stairway leading to the upstairs. White says he had to turn sideways to get through to the second floor.

Girl, 6, Dies From Swimming Pool Injury: child was partially disemboweled.

The Associated Press: Girl, 6, Dies From Swimming Pool Injury

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A 6-year-old girl whose intestines were partially sucked out by a swimming pool drain, leading to tougher safety legislation, has died, her family's attorney said Friday.

Abigail Taylor's parents were with her when she died Thursday at Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, where she had surgery to receive a new small bowel, liver and pancreas several months after she was injured.

She suffered setbacks, including a cancerous condition sometimes triggered by organ transplants, family attorney Bob Bennett said.

A hospital spokeswoman, Kara Haworth, confirmed Abigail's death but said she could not comment further and Abigail's doctors were not available Friday.

Abigail, of Edina, was injured June 29 when she sat on a wading pool drain at the Minneapolis Golf Club in the suburb of St. Louis Park; its powerful suction ripped out part of her intestinal tract.

Her parents, Scott and Katey Taylor, lobbied for tougher regulations to help prevent similar injuries, and in December, Congress approved legislation in December to ban the manufacture, sale or distribution of drain covers that don't meet anti-entrapment safety standards.

The legislation, the Virginia Graeme Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act, is named for another victim, the 7-year-old granddaughter of former Secretary of State James Baker. She drowned at a graduation party in 2002, when the suction from a drain pinned her.

State Sen. Geoff Michel called the Taylors "a very amazing family" after he learned of Abigail's death. He said Scott Taylor had promised his daughter that he would get the law changed.

"They have held up and been held up for such a tough, tough road. I just feel terrible for them," Michel said.

Bennett said the Taylors wouldn't be available to comment Friday. In November, the family brought a lawsuit against the golf club and Sta-Rite Industries, the pool equipment manufacturer owned by Pentair of Golden Valley.

Gretchen Koehn, president of the Minneapolis Golf Club's executive committee, sent a note to club members notifying them of Abigail's death. The club's "hearts and prayers" go out to the Taylor family, she wrote

.

Old smoke alarm may have led to woman's death in fire

News: Old smoke alarm may have led to woman's death in fire | alarms, smoke, fire, believe, power - OCRegister.com
Will your 10-year-old smoke alarm fail you?

Investigators say 60-year-old might have escaped her San Juan Capistrano home if her 35-year-old alarm had been operating.

This was sent to me courtesy of Jim C in the online class. Jim comments:

(This)kind of goes along with (our discussion of)complacency.

How many of us took the time to replace the batteries in our smoke detectors in our homes while we were changing our clocks for daylight savings? Put a new one if it needs it or not. If it is older, replace it. If you don’t have one, get one.

We should all take a little tour of our own homes now and again and make them safer and easier to escape from. Fire prevention starts at home. Check out the link, it’s a sad thing to think about a $10 device could have changed the outcome for this family.

I think Jim makes a very valid argument. Read the story and see what you think. The link to the original story has more photos and lots of worthwhile info on smoke detectors.

Thanks Jim!

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO – It may have been a fire burning in the floor below Rita Sales' bedroom that killed her, but investigators believe it was a smoke alarm that failed her.

The 60-year-old woman and her dog were in the bedroom when the fire began smoldering in the family room at 10 p.m. Jan. 25, officials said. It took firefighters about an hour to put out the blaze in the two-story home in the 33600 block of Avenida Calita, but investigators believe Sales might have been able to get out if the smoke alarm outside her bedroom had worked.

"We don't believe the smoke alarms were activated," said Chief Investigator Devin Leonard of the Orange County Fire Authority.

Investigators believe Sales' home was equipped with the same hard-wired smoke alarms that were included when the home was first built in 1973. Although the smoke alarms should be replaced every eight to 10 years, officials believe that most of the 400-plus homes in the same tract, like Sales' home, are using the same, ineffective alarms.

This Saturday, about a dozen firefighters are expected to be sent door to door in the tract where Sales lived to inform residents about the need to replace smoke alarms that could be more than 30 years old. The simple practice of replacing the alarms and checking the battery power could save lives, said Laura Blaul, Fire Authority fire marshal.

Hard-wired smoke alarms are connected to the home's power supply and use a battery as a backup. Although batteries should be replaced every six months, the entire smoke alarm needs to be replaced every 10 years. Because they are connected to the home itself, many homeowners have an incorrect notion that hard-wired alarms don't have to be replaced, like battery-power-only detectors, she said.

In the past six years, about 70 percent of fires in the county have been in homes equipped with ineffective smoke alarms, Blaul said.

Click HERE to read the rest of the story. It has lots of good info in it!

Ohio House Fire Kills Woman, 3 Children

The Associated Press: Ohio House Fire Kills Woman, 3 Children

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — A fire started by a candle swept through a two-story house, killing a woman and three children, fire officials said.

The woman's body was found on the lower level. The children, two girls and a younger boy, were found together in an upstairs hallway, according to fire officials.

"They may have become disoriented and tried to huddle together and tried to get out," said Deputy Fire Chief Luis Santiago.

The fire started around 10 p.m. on Wednesday and was contained within an hour, according to fire officials. Authorities said it appeared there were no smoke detectors in the house.

Neighbor Mike Matzinger, 49, said he was doing dishes when he saw flames shooting out the home's first-floor living room window and ran outside. He tried to break through a steel back door but it was locked and wouldn't budge, so he called to the children, who he thought were upstairs.

Matzinger said he yelled for them to come to the back window so he could catch them, but they never came.

He then ran to the front of the house, where a man who lives there was outside without shoes, screaming, "My kids, my kids, they're in the house." Matzinger told him, "We can't get them out."

The man ran toward the home, where flames and smoke were pouring out the windows, and collapsed as if in shock, Matzinger said. The man was taken away by ambulance, but his condition was not known.

The fire blackened the walls and ceilings of the home, melted its plastic siding and charred its wood frame. It also melted the siding of Matzinger's home a driveway away.

Newspaper Carrier Alerts Family to Fire

The Associated Press: Newspaper Carrier Alerts Family to Fire

File this under...we don't need no stinkin' smoke detector!

LENOIR CITY, Tenn. (AP) — A family in eastern Tennessee credits a newspaper carrier with saving their lives from a fire that was consuming their log cabin — and they weren't even subscribers.

"I know that woman will be rewarded in heaven one day," Charlene Dunsmore said of the 29-year-old carrier, Carston Jane McKee.

McKee was driving her route for The Knoxville News Sentinel on Saturday morning when she spotted flames on the porch of the Dunsmores' home on a country road. She was about 45 minutes earlier than usual because of an early press run.

McKee called 911 but didn't wait for a response.

"I ran to the log cabin and started beating on the windows," she said. "As soon as the lady opened up the front door, the fire was right next to the door."

Dunsmore, her husband, Shawn, and their 8-year-old son, James Paul "J. P." Dunsmore, fled the house barefoot but unscathed, though their two poodles died in the blaze, which quickly swept through their two-year-old home.

"We can't thank her enough," Shawn Dunsmore's aunt, Mary Ruth Dunsmore, said of McKee. "She went above and beyond. They're alive today because of what she did."

McKee remained at the scene for nearly an hour answering authorities' questions before resuming her paper route.

"It could have been anybody," she said.

The Associated Press: NC Fire Survivor Recounts Narrow Escape

The Associated Press: NC Fire Survivor Recounts Narrow Escape
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Fallon Sposato awoke to a blaring alarm and smoke seeping into the first-floor bedroom of the beach house where she and 12 friends had been partying just hours earlier. With her lungs and eyes burning, she ran with her boyfriend through the smoke-filled house, assuming her friends were already outside.

"And then nobody else was out yet," the 19-year-old University of South Carolina sophomore recalled during an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Seven students died in the blaze. Six others made it out of the house in Ocean Isle Beach, N.C., into the arms of neighbors and rescue workers.

"We were all hysterical. They were holding us back, trying to get our friends," said Sposato, a native of Orlando, Fla.

On Tuesday, officials at the University of South Carolina and in Ocean Isle Beach officially identified those killed in the fire: Cassidy Fae Pendley, 18; Lauren Astrid Kristiana Mahon, 18; Justin Michael Anderson, 19; Travis Lane Cale, 19; Allison Walden, 19; William Rhea, 18; and Emily Lauren Yelton, 19.

The group partied into the early morning on the back deck. Sposato said she was the first to go to bed, turning in at 4:30 a.m. after calling her father to say she had lost her camera.

Several hours later, Sposato and her boyfriend, whom she declined to identify, awoke to the alarms, flames and smoke. Called by neighbors who saw the fire, emergency personnel were pulling up when she got out of the house, Sposato said. Several hours later, Sposato would learn her roommate was among the dead.

Another student who made it out of the burning house told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Tuesday that he decided to jump into the canal behind the house to escape his smoke-filled upper-floor room.

"You knew you had to jump at some point; that was the only option," Tripp Wylie said on the show.

Dog Saves Family From Fire Blamed on Cat

GREENVILLE, Maine (AP) — Thumper, a black Labrador retriever, is getting credit for saving a Greenville man when a fire swept through his home.

Roland Cote said his wife and their 7-year-old grandson were away when the blaze started early Sunday in a converted two-story garage. He said Thumper grabbed him by the arm to wake him, leaving just enough time for him to dial 911 before fleeing the fast-moving fire.

While the dog is the hero, a cat is the bad guy in this story.

Cote said the fire marshal investigator believes the blaze was started when Princess, the family cat, tipped over a kerosene lantern. Cote says he and his pets escaped safely, but he says Princess did get her tail singed by the flames.

Check out the video....Not the same story...but close!

Children, 4 and 6, left alone rescued from apartment fire

Two children left home alone were rescued from a burning Joliet apartment Wednesday night by a neighbor who kicked in their door, officials said this morning.

A 6-year-old boy and a 4-year-old girl were treated for smoke inhalation in Provena St. Joseph Medical Center in Joliet and released, police said.

Twenty five people, including eight children, living on the fourth and fifth floors were displaced by the fire, which started on a bedroom mattress.

But officials this morning could not say how the fire started. The flames were contained within the apartment.

Gee...what do you think caused this fire???

Teens' debut sex interrupted by fire

Teens' debut sex interrupted by fire | NEWS.com.au

A TEENAGE couple having sex for the first time were interrupted when candles set fire to the girl's attic bedroom and forced them to flee naked from her parents' house, German daily Bild reported today.

The girl had wanted to create a romantic atmosphere for the occasion. But when the room suddenly became engulfed with flames, they had to make a hasty escape.

The couple, both 18, were pictured naked in the paper among the burned wreckage of the attic.

A charred teddy had survived but the fire wrecked the entire top floor of the house causing around $168,000 worth of damage.

Now that's hot!!! roflmao