Student’s surge protector causes fire
Most people buy surge protectors to keep their home safe, but for UCC Graphic Design major Ginger Johnson, that purchase became the source of a nightmare. The surge protector shorted out, and while she and her family were gone, the fire took nearly everything: pets, pictures, artwork, clothes and decades’ worth of memories. All gone. In less than twenty minutes.
“My family went on a drive to visit other family members after we just had a funeral, and about five hours after we left, our house caught on fire. It took less than 20 minutes for it to basically burn to the ground,” Johnson said.
A house fire is reported in this country, on average, every 80 seconds. In this country, someone dies from a house fire, on average, every 204 minutes, according to the American Red Cross. Yet only 26 percent of the families in this country have a fire escape plan.
“First and foremost is disbelief that it even happened. Before we went on our trip, I went through and unplugged things like the coffeepot and the toaster and turned all the computers off, did everything I was supposed to. The source of the fire was a surge-protecting power strip, the things you buy to take the precaution to protect your home and your belongings,” Johnson said.
“It took less than 20 minutes for it to basically burn to the ground.”
—Ginger Johnson
Christopher Harwood, who works in the T.O.P. center, also knows firsthand the pain and confusion of losing a home to a house fire.
“When I was 13 years old, our refrigerator had a mechanical problem, and a piece of wiring fell on the floor and ignited. We were staying in a motel for a little trip. We got a phone call from a neighbor who said ‘hey, your house is on fire, you might want to get down here as soon as you can. The firefighters are here now and it doesn’t look good.’ We had to live in a motel for about six months.”
In the United States, more than 900 people die each winter from house fires, according to the U.S. Fire Administration. And this number is growing. According to the Red Cross, the number of house fires has grown by 8 percent since 2000. It is the single-most common disaster in the United States and affects people from every spectrum in society.
“Usually when I see people, it is on the worst day of their life,” Kyle Ward said. Ward is the chief of the Days Creek Fire Department and president of the Douglas County Fire Investigation Team.
“They’ve lost everything they’ve invested in, [plus] the emotional damage. It’s a shock for a community. Up here everybody is tight-knit. There’s a real sense of helping your neighbor. A house fire is sort of a black eye on the whole neighborhood. Everybody feels it. In turn, I have seen people come together. People have clothes and blankets before I’m off-scene. It affects everybody.”
And while both Johnson and Harwood experienced fires that were caused by faulty wiring, the majority of residential fires are completely preventable. Unattended food cooking is the leading cause of fires, with heating – fireplaces, portable heaters and space heaters – being the second most common cause. So what are some steps people can take to reduce the chances of a house fire breaking out?
Fire Marshall Joe Pedrola has these tips for preventing winter fires:
“Start with checking around the house, eliminating clutter. When you have heat sources close to it, it makes that fire happen, makes it grow really fast. That is a very basic thing we see contributing to most fires we investigate. Make sure there is good clearance around heaters, 24 inches minimum. With wood stoves, make sure that the chimney has been cleaned properly. The other one is electrical systems. We tax electrical systems a lot because we have extra appliances. Make sure the breaker panel trips the breaker. Don’t do any type of tampering so we’re not taxing that panel to the point where we’re going to have an electrical fire behind the wall.”
Ward had a similar set of suggestions:
“Invest and have the chimney swept every year. Get it swept and inspected. Don’t leave anything unattended on the stove. Turn it off if you have to take a call or do anything else. The statistics are pretty high for unattended kitchen fires.”
For Johnson and her family, it has only been a few weeks, and the process of rebuilding a life is just beginning.
“We’re trying to go through the insurance process, and they say it can take two years before we get back into our house. Right now there is no normal. Right now there is a reinvention. There is going to be many stages of reinvention and adapting. To keep going with my schoolwork and not fall off the map is a good anchor. The biggest hurdle right now is the financial implications. Yes, we have insurance, but insurance won’t pay for security deposits to be in a rental with my children and my animals, so things like that have to be figured out.”