Case Studies

This high end electric sewing machine had numerous features including the ability to operate virtually unattended. Fortunately, the owner was in the same room when the power supply failed catastrophically and ignited a small fire. She had a fire extinguisher nearby and put it out before it spread to the large piles of fabric that were nearby.

Most of the connections in the propane system of this house were put together properly. Unfortunately, one that was buried just outside the house was not tightened sufficiently by the installer, and settlement in the soil around the house caused the connection to break free. The gas leaking into the soil migrated through the pentrations in the basement wall and accumulated in the basement until ignited the next time the boiler fired. The damage to the home was quite extensive.

An unfortunately curious squirrel was exploring the energized conductors in this substation that served a small town in the northern midwestern US. When his body spanned an electrical insulator, it initiated an electrical arc. If the substation protection had been working properly, a circuit breaker would have been opened and the only damage sustained would have been to the squirrel. Maintenance personnel, however, had disabled the automatic protection while doing maintenance, and forgot to re-enable it. The error resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage, and left a town without power for hours.

The man who lived in this townhome left his bagel in the toaster as he rushed out the door on his way to work. Unfortunately, a mechanical defect in the toaster prevented it from "popping up" when the bagel was toasted, and it continued to be heated until it ignited. The resultant fire created this classic "v-pattern" on the kitchen wall.

At some point during the middle of the night, an internal failure in this electronic cash register failed catastrophically, igniting a piece of plastic mounted to the circuit board, then spreading to the plastic housing and out to the counter. The fire ultimately burned itself out, but not before producing enough smoke to kill the store's entire inventory of tropical fish.

In the course of renovating a basement room, an electrician installed electrical wiring just above the I-beam shown here on the surface of a wooden support plate. The wiring was not properly protected from penetration as required by the National Electrical Code, and when the drywall contractor was installing the sheet-rock, he drove a screw right through the electrical cable. When the electrician came back later and turned on the circuit breaker, it started a fire.

When the owner of this dryer started drying her clothes, she took her dog out for a walk (he couldn't stand the noise). The bearing had worn out, and the bearing support was cutting into the shaft. Ultimately, she came back from one of her walks to find the house on fire because the shaft had worn clear through and broken, resulting in the drum making contact with the electrical heating coils behind it. The electrical short generated excess heat and started a fire.

When a bathroom vent fan failed catastrophically, it dripped burning plastic from its cover. The burning plastic ignited the toilet seat and the rug below the toilet. The fire might have spread catastrophically, but the heat of the fire cracked the toilet tank, which then quenched the fire. Consequently, the event turned out to be a water loss, more than a fire loss.