My mom & I went to a wedding Saturday evening.
When we got home, it was almost dark. We saw the shadow of a flame going up the side of the water heater in the garage.
The fire department told us that that was probably the cause of the fire, though they couldn’t say for certain.
The fire definitely started in the garage was the concensus. Our insurance company sent out their own investigator. Their investigator started raking through the debris on the garage floor with a hoe.
He found a circle on the ground where the trash can used to be. He said the fire definitely started outside of the water heater, but near it (which was where the trash can was) & spread to the water heater where a gas leak caused the flame up the side of the heater & spread the fire further.
I recalled when he said that that when my mom & I left for the wedding I smelled a distinct smell in the garage. I asked my mom what it was, since she had been doing maintenance around the house. She said it was linseed oil. She had oiled the solid wood front door earlier in the afternoon with an old T-shirt with linseed oil on it. Because the shirt was smelly, she then put the T-shirt in the garage trash, that had no lid, & would have thrown the trash out Monday on trash day.
We left for the wedding & when we came back the house was (half of it anyway) toast.
The big plastic trash can where the fire probably started was poof! gone. All that remained was a perfect circle on the ground covered by debris & twisted metal from the garage door tracks.
The investigator speculated that the old T-shirt with the linseed oil on it spontaneously combusted. Though he said that there was not enough left of the debris to conclusively tell, he thought that it was the likely cause.
Due to the location of the start of the fire & the location of combustible materials in our garage I agreed with him.
When my mom found out what probably happened she was totally freaked out. She had never thought about that kind of thing. I’m sure I wouldn’t have either.
She felt worse when she realized the fire was probably the result of something she did.
But like I said you can’t know everything. She’s doing a lot better now.
She underinsured the house, in that, she insured the house for what she could have sold it for. However, it would cost 40 to 50 thousand more to repair it. Consequently, we are moving. I’m using the PC for hotel customers at our hotel’s front desk. It’s noisy. ’ )
We’re going to be alright. But learn from our mistake. As the fire investigator told my mom when she said what she could do differently next time.
- Soak oily rags in water.
- To dispose oily rags seal them in an airtight container.
- Keep combustible chemicals & materials, stored in your garage, in one cabinet, where they can be visibly eyeballed to see if they are leaking fumes or fluid.
- For reasons I don’t understand, temperature has nothing to do with the combustibility of certain kinds of material.
Some fluids/materials must have certain conditions present to combust.
A couple of weeks ago, a fire started in our metroplex from dirty diapers. No joke.
And this is Texas. Like in the Midwest, the risk of fire spreading is very bad right now. We had 12 fire trucks respond to our fire.
Take care & review proper storage of household chemicals & combustible materials.
Melissa