Bad Fido - dogs water dish causes a fire
Memo to self -- do not set a full glass water dish out on my deck.
From the
Seattle Times:
Dogs' water bowl may be cause of fire in Bellevue
The spring sunlight that delighted so many across the Puget Sound region this weekend may have been responsible for setting a deck on fire Sunday.
After ruling out other possible causes, investigators for the Bellevue Fire Department blamed the blaze in the 17100 block of Northeast Fifth Street on the dogs' glass water bowl. The partially-filled bowl apparently concentrated the sun's rays like a magnifying glass, said Lt. Eric Keenan, the department's community liaison officer.
"It's very unusual, but it's not unheard of," he said.
The 11-inch-diameter bowl was elevated above the wooden deck in a wire stand, Keenan said. "There was nothing else in that area that could be identified as a fire source � no smokers, no electrical devices."
No one was home when the fire started just before 3 p.m. Neighbors called in the alarm when they noticed flames and smoke.
The deck was destroyed and the adjacent kitchen badly burned. Total damage was estimated at about $215,000.
An 11 inch bowl can concentrate a lot of light. It hope they get with the manufacturer as the design of the bowl could have been changed to limit the chance of this happening -- simple optics... Then again, if it was just a simple kitchen mixing bowl, those are common -- we have five or six of them here.
Posted by DaveH at May 19, 2009 7:11 AM