Toaster blamed

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Pizza Causes House Fire
By Erin Lynch
01/05/2007

A 75-year-old York Road man inadvertently set his kitchen on fire after a he placed a frozen pizza in a toaster oven Monday and left it unattended.

According to the fire report, the Emergency Communication Center received a call of a house fire at 108 York Road from a neighbor's home at 9:10 p.m. When firefighters arrived on scene, the report states, fire was visible from the home along with "heavy smoke" coming from the chimney.

he had placed a pizza in the toaster oven and then left to watch television. According to the report, about 20 minutes later the man discovered a fire by the toaster oven and tried to put it out. The man's attempts at extinguishing the fire were unsuccessful, according to the report, so he went across the street, to 113 York Road, and call 9-1-1.

According to Fire Marshal Asst. Chief William Kessler, the fire started in the kitchen either in or next to the toaster oven. In the report, Kessler stated that there was "a substantial amount of combustibles in contact with and in the area of the toaster oven. These were ignited while the toaster oven was unattended [and] the fire spread to surrounding combustibles."

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It seems like you should put toasters on my SmokeShutoff(TM) power strip especially if the home occupants are old, or have any other conditions which would raise their risk but they still want to live independently. Maybe something fell against the toaster oven and if it had smoldered for a bit before combustion, the power strip would have shut off the toaster and prevented the fire.