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Laptop sets destructive house fire in Clackamas County
A laptop computer plugged in and left on a bed is what started a house fire in Clackamas County late last month, fire officials said Wednesday.
On the afternoon of October 20th, crews responded to a fire in the 11,000 block of Southeast Montgomery. The fire, which broke out on the second floor of the home, had spread to the attic by the time crews arrived. It started as a smoldering fire from a laptop computer that had been plugged in and left on a bed.
“The mattress was completely consumed, leaving only a charred bed frame,” said Clackamas County Fire District #1 spokesman Lt. John Hopkins.
The laptop was three years old and it had its original battery. The owner told fire fighters that she had noticed that the laptop had been getting uncomfortably hot recently.
Hopkins said the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s website lists many brands of laptop batteries that have started fires while being recharged. He did not know if the battery in this particular laptop is among them, but he said there is a good chance it was.
Crews had the fire out within 15 to 20 minutes. No one was hurt, but the home suffered more than $100,000 dollars in damage.
1 comment:
Another application for a power strip with smoke detecting automatic shutoff.
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