something similar happened a dozen years ago to the owner of a small local bookstore. Not fatal, but a burglar climbed down the chimney on Christmas Day trying to break in to the store, and got stuck inside. Half-naked, because he had taken off most of his clothes to fit inside.
Luckily, the owner came in that afternoon to do office work, heard him calling, and called authorities, who got him out (and arrested him). Because otherwise, he would have been stuck there for a day or two until the store reopened, and would not have survived.
But the chimney & parts of the furnace & ventilation system, and store interior was destroyed in getting this burglar out. Which cost the store owner several thousand dollars to have repaired, which he had to pay himself. Plus the local newspaper wrongly reported that the store was without heat, which kept many customers away from their normally big after-Christmas sale.
The costs of this to the store pretty much destroyed their holiday-season profits that year. Given all the pressures on small bookstores at that time (online book sales were starting to be big competition), I’m surprised (and pleased) that the bookstore managed to survive.
I wonder how much the homeowner is culpable for deliberately cooking and/or suffocating the guy. It isn’t that hard to put out a fireplace fire you’ve just started.
Perhaps just a bit of smoke and heat is enough to a) reduce the already tenuous oxygen supply in there below the critical amount, and B) pretty well stop what little natural air flow was getting fresh air in there. So the guy passes out and suffocates quickly thereafter not being warmed hardly at all, much less cooked. And this condition happened promptly after the fire was lit and would continue even after the fire was quickly doused.
For sure the homeowner would have had inescapable notice and incentive to douse the fire after he saw the chimney not drawing and all the smoke was entering the house.
Perhaps this is an attempt at a perfect crime. Stuff your nemisis down your chimney after you light the fire. I suggest check of both their cell phones to see if they knew each other:D
I disagree, from my own experience. I prepare our fireplace with what I consider the perfect combo of fire starters, kindling, small and large dry/split hardwood. One match and it’s roaring.
Once I lit my fire before opening the flue. I raced to the kitchen for an oven mitt and managed to grab the flue-opener, but it was a close call and I singed the hair off my arm.
I grew up in California where fireplaces and chimneys were essentially decorative. Houses had to have them for stylistic reasons but most were never used over the life of the house. The OP’s crime also took place in CA.
The technique of the typical CA fireplace user would be to have some damp logs bought from Home Depot, crumple 2 sheets of newspaper under them, then hold a Bic against one corner of one sheet. Then observe the paper burn completely resulting in a small brief glow on the tip of one splinter hanging off the log.
Lather, rinse, repeat until bored, then declare that something’s defective about this damn fireplace.
That’s firestartin’ Cali style!
Of course we don’t know whether this homeowner is more like you or like my hypothetical. But IMO the odds favor my end of the spectrum.
Not on my watch. Nobody from California (at least, Southern California) called it that when I was there. I’ve noticed a few Californians calling it that recently. It makes my teeth itch.
FTR: I HATE the word “Cali”. It was coined after I left paradise (i.e. California) and makes me think of something an imported NJ Guido might say. You know, the people who’ve been paving paradise to put up more parking lots for themselves and their noxious offspring.
