Sunday, November 07, 2004

Valuable Fire Safety Bulletin Received by Kitchener Fire Department

Friends: My brother and his wife learned a hard lesson this last week. Their house burned down...nothing left but ashes. They have good insurance, so the home will be replaced and most of the contents. That is the good news.
However, they were sick when they found out the cause of the fire. The insurance investigator sifted through the ashes for several hours. He had the cause of the fire traced to the master bathroom. He asked my sister-in-law what she had plugged in the bathroom. She listed the normal things....curling iron, blow dryer. He kept saying to her, "No, this would be something that would disintegrate at high temperatures."

Then, my sister-in-law remembered she had a Glade Plug-in in the bathroom. The investigator had one of those "Aha" moments. He said that was the cause of the fire. He said he has seen more home fires started with the plug-in type room fresheners than anything else. He said the plastic they are made from is a THIN plastic.

He said in every case there was nothing left to prove that it even existed. When the investigator looked in the wall plug, the two prongs left from the plug-in were still in there.
My sister-in-law had one of the plug-ins that had a small night light built in it. She said she had noticed that the light would dim....and then finally go out. She would walk in a few hours later, and the light would be back on again. The investigator said that the unit was getting too hot, and would dim and go out rather than just blow the light bulb. Once it cooled down, it would come back on. That is a warning sign. The investigator said he personally wouldn't have any type of plug-in fragrance device anywhere in his house. He has seen too many burned down homes. Consumer Products Safety Commission

**this was sent to me by a friend of mine which of course was a forward from someone else, but I thought it would be a good idea to post it, in case you have one of these things, better safe then sorry...isn't it?**

2 comments:

Moon said...

wow.....thanks, I just went downstairs and unplugged the one I have there. No more of that shit in my house...those things should be taken off the market for god sakes..I am gratefull for the warning...

The Witch Doctor said...

the one in the article is about the glade plug-in's with the night light so I'm not sure if it's the same with just the glade plug-in's that don't have the night light... I wouldn't use either just incase... or even maybe the glade plug-in's that have the lil fan on them... I think I'll just steer clear of all the plug-in's just to be on the safe side...
Just makes me worry a lil I have friends that have just the plain plug-in's...
So yeah feel free to pass this on to anyone you know...