Electrical Fire?? Sounds suspicious to me!!

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brother

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Ok, I know that its POSSIBLE, but I believe highly unlikely when I saw the pics. There was this article about where an electrical fire started with the 'smoke detector' wiring that burned a house down.
Basically they claiming that AFCI would have prevented this. My only issue from looking at the so called pics is that the damage was soo great its really hard if not impossible to blame the electrical wire to the smoke detector for it. It just sounds suspicious to me.

Dont get me wrong , I think the fire department does a good job overall, but everytime I hear bout so called electrical fire started, sometimes the damage is soo great that it just doesnt seem to possilbe to just pin it on that. Anyone else have an opinion. ??
 
Well it seems like there must have been pretty convincing details and evidence to claim the fire started at a smoke detector. I would guess that when it IS electrical there are some specific markers that show it. That's why it seems like they either blame electrical or they just don't know.
 
There's some bar and grill in my area whose owner/employees do most of their own wiring. We aren't even allowed to go do service calls there, no matter what, because of the liability. Another electrician I know (different shop) went out there to install a new circuit or something and when he went to plug in his drill battery charger the bartender ran up and said, "Don't use that plug! It's 240 volts!" .... it was a standard 120V 15A receptacle hooked up 240. And I guess their panel was so overloaded that they kept the cover and deadfront off and had a big fan blowing across it 24/7.

Finally fate caught up to the place and it burned down a few months ago. No one was injured but I sure don't miss it. The place was a dive.
 
ericsherman37 said:
There's some bar and grill in my area whose owner/employees do most of their own wiring. We aren't even allowed to go do service calls there, no matter what, because of the liability. Another electrician I know (different shop) went out there to install a new circuit or something and when he went to plug in his drill battery charger the bartender ran up and said, "Don't use that plug! It's 240 volts!" .... it was a standard 120V 15A receptacle hooked up 240. And I guess their panel was so overloaded that they kept the cover and deadfront off and had a big fan blowing across it 24/7.

Finally fate caught up to the place and it burned down a few months ago. No one was injured but I sure don't miss it. The place was a dive.
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Thats got to be statement of the week written in red!! LOL. Unbelieveable
 
brother said:
There was this article about where an electrical fire started with the 'smoke detector' wiring that burned a house down.
My only issue from looking at the so called pics is that the damage was soo great its really hard if not impossible to blame the electrical wire to the smoke detector for it. It just sounds suspicious to me.
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Got a link to that article so we can see this info as well?

And I guess their panel was so overloaded that they kept the cover and deadfront off and had a big fan blowing across it 24/7.
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There are pics somewhere on here of another location doing exactly that....so not a big surprise and nothing new to me.
 
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Twoskinsoneman said:
Well it seems like there must have been pretty convincing details and evidence to claim the fire started at a smoke detector. I would guess that when it IS electrical there are some specific markers that show it. That's why it seems like they either blame electrical or they just don't know.
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They will have a very good idea of the point of origin in most cases, and if the only likely source of ignition in that area is electrical, then the cause will be listed as electrical. In this case, given the probably lack of other ignition sources in the ceiling, I would tend to agree that this fire may have been of electrical origin.

That being said, it remains my opinion that a large number of fires that are listed as having an electrical cause, really were not caused by electrical equipment. There is pressure on the fire departments to not leave the cause listed as "unknown" on their reports, and in many cases they use electrical when they really don't know.
 
Years ago when I was an apprentice in Phoenix, AZ., I was in a class where the instructor referred to a situation where there had been a fire in a structure and the cause was listed as electrical but the only problem was that the service had been disconnected months before the fire started. Residual EMF perhaps:roll:
 
A/A Fuel GTX said:
Years ago when I was an apprentice in Phoenix, AZ., I was in a class where the instructor referred to a situation where there had been a fire in a structure and the cause was listed as electrical but the only problem was that the service had been disconnected months before the fire started. Residual EMF perhaps:roll:
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I hate when that happens.
 
A/A Fuel GTX said:
Years ago when I was an apprentice in Phoenix, AZ., I was in a class where the instructor referred to a situation where there had been a fire in a structure and the cause was listed as electrical but the only problem was that the service had been disconnected months before the fire started. Residual EMF perhaps:roll:
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Some of the left over electrons were probably squatting and decided to torch the place to cover up evidence of their meth lab.
 
Unless the fire investigator was actually there when the fire started and personally saw the cause, then he is assuming alot of liability. I would have no problem putting undetermined on a fire report and allow the insurance company to bring in their high dollars investigators for a cause and origin review. This has happened many times and very few times is it actually electrical. I have witnessed some investigations that would blow your mind on how they can piece it back together from ashes. Just like CSI or NCIS, it is possible with some degree of accuracy. Yes I have seen the hack jobs that are just a matter of time before they ignite something. I guess that is job security of the Fire Department.
 
ptonsparky said:
Must be something to this because I had someone try to explain to me how this is one of the reasons for "stray voltage" at Dairy Barns. My eyes started to glaze over almost immediately so I can't give any details.
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Pay attention next time. The secrets of the universe have slipped through your hands.
 
inspector 102 said:
Unless the fire investigator was actually there when the fire started and personally saw the cause, then he is assuming alot of liability. I would have no problem putting undetermined on a fire report and allow the insurance company to bring in their high dollars investigators for a cause and origin review. This has happened many times and very few times is it actually electrical. I have witnessed some investigations that would blow your mind on how they can piece it back together from ashes. Just like CSI or NCIS, it is possible with some degree of accuracy. Yes I have seen the hack jobs that are just a matter of time before they ignite something. I guess that is job security of the Fire Department.
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There is almost no liability to the fire investigator or his fire department in putting down a cause. As far as unknown, that is discouraged, especially if the department is submitting NFIRS (National Fre Incident Reporting System)reports. In most cases, the only reason an insurance company does an investigation is when they are trying to deny the claim.
 
I have seen two fire reports.

The first one we had to persuade the landlord not to reuse the furnace from the home. He had fired it up to test it since it wasn't involved in the fire. We explained it was a bad idea to reuse it since the fire department listed it as the source of the fire.

The second was on my property where an outlet started the fire. Since it had no discoloration and the wall around it was fine (protected by a sofa) I tested it. When I couldn't find anything wrong I was tempted to reuse it. It went into the trash along with my remaining confidence in fire reports.
 
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