Community Chat

[Cakers3]

January 9, 2022

A faulty space heater sparked a fire in an apartment where, for some reason, the door was left open.  This allowed thick, black, billowing smoke to fill hallways making escape deadly.

19 people, including 9 children, are dead.  Dozens more, some critical, are hospitalized; many from smoke inhalation.

There is a fund page (not sure if I can name it) for these residents.

When all is said and done, be grateful that you have your warm home; nothing else matters when loved ones are lost.

[occasionalrain]

I read an interview with a tenant who said the fire alarm goes off regularly so they ignore it. Probably it's activated by smoke from tenants' cooking mishaps, but to ignore it has proved foolish.

[Gorgf]

Fires are so deadly and so difficult to fight in cold, frigid weather. My ex was a volunteer firefighter. He hated candles, even plug in air freshners. Every job I had in a public building, schools and offices  etc. banned the use of  space heaters. We seem to have a  serious home fire week lately in Winter. A 100 year old warehouse last week burned. 

I was saddened to hear this news this morning and hope for recovery for those affected. It all has got to be  very frightening and devastating.

Every day I am Thankful for a warm home. Today we  maybe will make zero degrees. I feed birds, squirrels, deer and rabbits. Mid twenties coming tomorrow. 

Thankyou @Cakers3 @ for posting the sweet pictures. Bless our Firefighters and thankful for their service.

[Love my grandkids]

Slight correction. It was a fire door that was left open. How horrible.

[Othereeeen]

I HATE space heaters...and I noticed QVC isnt pushing them anymore...

Every time I saw them on, I wondered HOW many people know if thier electrical wiring and fuses and breakers can handle that load?

Especially since space heaters are used more frequently in older inneficient homes....that have older wiring or fuses ( instead of breakers...even some breakers from the 1970s are suspect....)

the next fire starters in my opinion? 

AIr Fryers that are gettng bigger and bigger ....HSN had a Ninja tw drawer on yesterday and I can see NO mention of how many watts it is either on HSN or Amazon.

Fires waiting to happen in my opinion.

If you don't know your circuit's capability for SURE, all these high wattage appliances are a disaster waiting to happen.

Who needs an airfryer the size of a clothes dryer anyway?

[goldensrbest]

Some came to our country to find a new life,and end up dying ,how sad,and yes the firefighters did their best to try and save them.

[Cakers3]

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@Love my grandkids wrote:

Slight correction. It was a fire door that was left open. How horrible.

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@Love my grandkids   Thank you for the update.  I had only read that the apartment door was left open.

[Cakers3]

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@occasionalrain wrote:

I read an interview with a tenant who said the fire alarm goes off regularly so they ignore it. Probably it's activated by smoke from tenants' cooking mishaps, but to ignore it has proved foolish.

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@occasionalrain   Sometimes an alarm will go off when it is time to be checked-as in battery operated alarms. 

Ours will "tweet" when the battery is getting low but will not go on continuously.  We change every 6 months but sometimes, depending upon the brand, the batteries start to lose "juice" before the 6 monts are up.

If the alarm is only going on in short blips I can see why it would be ignored.

I do not know if those alarms were hard-wired or battery operated or both.

If hard wired, however, and there had been a continual problem with false alarms, there is more going on in that building's electrical system.

[qualitygal]

That's so horribly heart-wrenchingly sad.

[Kachina624]

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@Othereeeen wrote:

I HATE space heaters...and I noticed QVC isnt pushing them anymore...

Every time I saw them on, I wondered HOW many people know if thier electrical wiring and fuses and breakers can handle that load?

Especially since space heaters are used more frequently in older inneficient homes....that have older wiring or fuses ( instead of breakers...even some breakers from the 1970s are suspect....)

the next fire starters in my opinion? 

AIr Fryers that are gettng bigger and bigger ....HSN had a Ninja tw drawer on yesterday and I can see NO mention of how many watts it is either on HSN or Amazon.

Fires waiting to happen in my opinion.

If you don't know your circuit's capability for SURE, all these high wattage appliances are a disaster waiting to happen.

Who needs an airfryer the size of a clothes dryer anyway?

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@Othereeeen    They had a small, plug in set of 2  heaters as a TSV last month.   There also a recent Dyson fan/heater TSV.   We didn't have a Duraflame stove heater this year.