Archive for August, 2010

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. ? A fire that did $20,000 in damages to a northeast Arkansas home wasn’t caused by an electrical problem or burning food or arson, an insurance investigator concluded.

Instead, the dead plants did it, according to a report summary provided to the homeowner, Brian Duncan.

“The fire was caused by self-heating through decomposition of organic materials contained within a plastic flowerpot,” the Aug. 25 letter from State Farm Insurance Co. said.

Or, in layman’s terms, spontaneous combustion.

Duncan, whose home is a few miles south of Paragould, said the flowerpot had contained dead, decomposing flowers and potting soil that his wife had planted in the summer of 2009. Paragould is about 150 miles northeast of Little Rock.

“She had intended on repotting (the flowers),” Duncan said. But they sat on the porch, unwatered, and eventually died.

He said it was clear where the July 25 fire had begun, because the burning flowerpot and plants charred a hole in the porch and they fell to the ground several feet below.

Still, Duncan said he was surprised at the conclusion contained in the letter. Duncan provided The Associated Press with a copy.

Fortunately, no one was injured in the blaze and Duncan’s father-in-law was able to put it out with a garden hose even before firefighters from a nearby volunteer fire department arrived.

But it still caused some damage.

Duncan, 51, CEO of Craighead Electric Cooperative, said the blaze charred decking around the hole where the flowerpot had been, and caught the home’s vinyl siding ( A plastic exterior cladding for a house, used for decoration and weatherproofing, as an alternative to traditional wood siding or other materials such as aluminum or fiber cement siding. It is an engineered product, manufactured primarily f on fire. He said the heat broke a sidelight window next to the front door, and his air-conditioning system sucked in smoke from the fire.

“The house was full of smoke,” he said.

The smoke damage inside the 15-year-old home, Duncan said, meant his family had to repaint the entire interior of the 2,200-square-foot home and replace the carpeting, in addition to replacing the vinyl siding ( A plastic exterior cladding for a house, used for decoration and weatherproofing, as an alternative to traditional wood siding or other materials such as aluminum or fiber cement siding. It is an engineered product, manufactured primarily f on the front of the house and the wooden decking of the porch.

Duncan said that, since the fire, he had begun spreading the word about the potential fire hazards of dead plants.

A fire marshal in nearby Jonesboro, Jason Wills, said such an occurrence was rare.

“Spontaneous combustion is something where you have to have a lot of variables come together and it has to be just right,” Wills told Jonesboro television station KAIT. “It’s something that does happen, but this is the first one in our area that I’m aware of.”

RACINE – A fire that destroyed a vacant three-family home on
Slauson Avenue early Tuesday morning was intentionally set,
according to the Racine Fire Department.

Fire Lt. Brett Haller said the fire started in a storage area
under the stairs next to the kitchen on the first floor of the
house at 1920 Slauson Ave.

Firefighters were called to the home at 12:36 a.m. Tuesday. By the
time they arrived, the two-story house was already in flames,
Haller said. The fire was extinguished within the first hour.

Haller said while crews were working to knock the fire down, a
firefighter fell through the floor of the house. The firefighter
was not injured.

Crews had to evacuate the house and fight the fire from the
exterior, Haller said. Crews remained on the scene for several
hours.

Haller said because of the instability of the house, they were
unable to go in and investigate the cause of the fire early
Tuesday. A building inspector for the city later determined that
investigators could go inside, but not on the second floor.

On Tuesday afternoon, investigators determined the fire was the
result of arson.

“No one should have been there,” Haller said.

He said the house has been vacant and for sale for some time, but
there was evidence that people have been in the residence.

Haller said the house was a total loss, with heavy fire and smoke
damage. The damage was estimated at $90,000. Radiant heat from the
fire also caused damage to the vinyl siding ( A plastic exterior cladding for a house, used for decoration and weatherproofing, as an alternative to traditional wood siding or other materials such as aluminum or fiber cement siding. It is an engineered product, manufactured primarily f of a residence at 1918
Slauson Ave., according to a press release.

It’s the second time in the past week that firefighters have been
called to a fire that was intentionally set in the neighborhood,
Haller said.

Nearby, another intentionally set fire at 1914 16th St. late
Saturday night caused an estimated $400 in damage, according to
investigators.

Haller urged people who live in the area to pay attention and call
police if they see anything suspicious.

Anyone with any information on the Tuesday fire is asked to call
the Racine Fire Department’s Fire Prevention Bureau at (262)
635-7915.

Expansion efforts at the Kinston plant of the nation?s top producer of turkey products experienced a major setback Monday afternoon when a construction mishap apparently set the building afire.

A giant plume of smoke floated from Butterball LCC?s Kinston packaging plant at 4125 Berkley Ave. over U.S. 70 into downtown Kinston for more than an hour as firefighters struggled to extinguish the blaze that partially collapsed the second story, peeled back the siding off the building and nearly caused an explosion.

No one was injured in the fire, which sparked around 2 p.m., but about 20 workers quickly evacuated the building.

Investigators have yet to determine the cause of the fire, but the building?s owner, Walter Poole, and an employee said it started where contractors worked to expand the loading dock on the west end of the plant.

?I smelled something burning and I went outside and saw workers continuing to work on the loading dock,? said Boyd Harris, a fork lift driver at the plant. ?They were burning off bolts with a torch. I went back inside, the smoke got stronger and my manager came over and told me to ?get out, the plant is on fire.? ?

Eight trucks from the Kinston Department of Public Safety?s Fire and Rescue Division and North Lenoir Volunteer Fire Department surrounded the facility and controlled the fire around 3:30 p.m. They flooded the building with water and used chainsaw?s to cut holes in doors and walls for ventilation.

Firefighters protected the blaze from spreading to a tower adjoining the facility filled with liquid nitrogen, which, if ruptured, could have caused an explosion.

?It went up fast,? Harris said, who talked as he watched firefighters from in front of a vacant building across the street from the plant. ?I tried to use a water hose to extinguish some of the fire, but it became too much,? he said.

Poole ? who has leased the facility since 2001 to Butterball, formerly Carolina Turkeys ? said he gave the Garner-based corporation the green light to expand the loading dock in April.? The plant processes bulk and prepackaged sliced turkey products.

?I was driving by and between the two doors of the dock?s bay, I saw flames shooting up into the overhang and the vinyl siding ( A plastic exterior cladding for a house, used for decoration and weatherproofing, as an alternative to traditional wood siding or other materials such as aluminum or fiber cement siding. It is an engineered product, manufactured primarily f beginning to melt,? Poole said. ?I called 911 and helped make sure people got out because it took off and in a matter of minutes it was full blown with smoke starting to pour out the vent pipe on the roof.?

Poole said he was impressed by the emergency response, which included Lenoir County EMS crews that stayed on scene to monitor firefighters for heat exhaustion.

?Emergency personnel acted on a timely basis and they should be proud of that,? Poole said. ?You can always rebuild a building, but can?t replace lives.?

Mike Bliss, vice president of operations for Butterball?s Furthering Processing Division, would not confirm Harris? or Poole?s accounts of how the fire started as the company is waiting for the KDPS to complete its investigation.

?The most important thing is we got out safely,? Bliss said. ?The team did an excellent job of following protocol and exiting the building safely.?

Bill Johnson, director Kinston Public Safety, said firefighters arrived to find the side extension of the building fully involved with heavy fire showing.

?We attacked it in two ways,? Johnson said. ?We cut the east wall of the building to get to the second floor and help ventilate smoke from the interior to the outside of the building, where we also had personnel working to control the fire.?

Johnson did not have a damage estimate on the building, but said it experienced heavy fire and smoke damage. Poole also did not have a damage estimate.

?I will have to get inside,? Poole said. ?I don?t know if the foundation?s girdles have been compromised or not.?

?

Wesley Brown can be reached at 252-559-1075 or wbrown@freedomenc.com.

Dan Shearin did not think the end results would be so catastrophic.

After experiencing Ivan, Floyd and Fran, the Nashville native thought Katrina would be just another hurricane to pass through his home of Biloxi, Miss.

But five years ago today, Shearin witnessed his serene coastal community ? enriched with grand-scale casinos, marine wildlife, historic Civil War landscapes and dense year-round tourism ? become leveled; another Southern city to succumb to Hurricane Katrina?s ferocity.

?It was unreal. Like nothing I have ever seen in my life,? Shearin said.

Today marks the fifth anniversary of America?s fatal bout with Hurricane Katrina, and its infamous and unforgiving devastation of cities along the Gulf Coast. The hurricane has been deemed as one of America?s deadliest and costliest natural disasters, and its aftermath still has left many communities longing for a rebirth.

After all of the cleanup efforts, financial aid and rebuilding, remnants of the storm still are apparent for Dan, 61, and his wife, Dottie, 62. They have the painful reminders saved via newspaper clippings, bold media headlines and amateur photographs.

Nonetheless, both agree: further dwelling on the past is not needed.

?I?m an optimistic person. When something happens you can?t change it. You just have to take the best from it,? Dan said. ?That was a dark period for all of us. ? We found a way to bounce back. We?re continuing to live.?

Dan and Dottie Shearin moved from Fayetteville to Biloxi in 2001. The couple had hopes of staying in Biloxi past retirement, adding they had many close friends throughout the area.

They heard from multiple residents and media outlets that Saturday, Aug. 27, that the hurricane was likely to strike. The next day, law enforcement officials swarmed their neighborhood notifying them the city was under a mandatory evacuation.

The Shearins were warned that police would not respond to emergency calls if they stayed behind. But Dan said he thought the warnings were typical scare tactics.

The urgency to leave was further backed by their next door neighbor, Jeff Powell, who lived in Biloxi during Hurricane Camille in 1969.

?I was thinking then ?This must be serious. Let?s get out of here,?? Dan Shearin said.

Dan and Dottie Shearin retreated to a nearby school used as a shelter to stay overnight. Around 5 a.m. Monday, the ?calm before the storm? happened, Dottie Shearin said.

?Everything was so quiet and peaceful. Little did we know, we we?re in the eye of the storm,? she said.

Two hours later, that?s when disaster struck.

Rapid outpours of rain and bellowing gusts of winds began storming around shelter and into the city?s shores. Dan and Dottie Shearinwitnessed the weather topple nearby homes and total vehicles. They said they were thankful they got to a safe haven in time.

?You would have thought we were looking at a science-fiction movie,? Dan Shearin said. ?We were blessed. ? I immediately thought to myself ?That could have been us.??

He raced back to his neighborhood after the weather subsided, expecting his home to suffer the same fate as others nearby. The Shearin?s street block was turned upside down. Uprooted trees, charcoal-colored roof shingles, vinyl siding ( A plastic exterior cladding for a house, used for decoration and weatherproofing, as an alternative to traditional wood siding or other materials such as aluminum or fiber cement siding. It is an engineered product, manufactured primarily f and other piles of debris lined corridors of the subdivision.

Luckily, the Shearins only were dealt a missing roof, shattered windows, tree limbs and peeled vinyl siding ( A plastic exterior cladding for a house, used for decoration and weatherproofing, as an alternative to traditional wood siding or other materials such as aluminum or fiber cement siding. It is an engineered product, manufactured primarily f. Other neighbors were not so fortunate.

?It was so painful to watch the people around us suffering,? Dottie Shearin said. ?So many people tried to do as much as they could to pick back up where they left off. But sometimes it?s not that simple.?

Dan said he would have loved to remain in Biloxi after the hurricane. But the damage and dismal surroundings were too much to bear, his wife said.

?You can?t try and live in denial,? she said. ?When you go to sleep at night and you start dreaming and your heart is pounding because of flashbacks … It?s not a good feeling? I just had to get out of there.?

The couple chose to move nearly 850 miles away from the nearly destroyed Biloxi to Rocky Mount in April 2006. Both now can sit comfortably inside their home on Morning Glory Road, thankful for another opportunity to live.

Dan Shearin said he relishes the fact that he finally is home, close to his boyhood roots.

?I?ve gone through too much to try and wrap my brain around what could?ve been done differently the first time,? he said. ?I?m hoping I?m not involved with anything like that again.?