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Mobile
phone charger rings a fire alarm Within minutes the upper floor of the two-storey luxury residence of a building contractor on Stanley Tilakaratne Mawatha was gutted. Important documents, furniture, jewellery and other valuables were destroyed in the fire on Sunday. Investigations revealed that the fire was caused by an overheated mobile phone charger. The householder had put his mobile phone on charge and gone to a service station he owned. The sole occupant of the house at the time of the incident, Chandra Devapriya, was unaware until she was alerted by neighbours to a smoke coming out of the bedroom air conditioner. "I was taking my lunch downstairs, when I was informed of the smoke. No sooner I opened the door of the master bedroom than I was engulfed in a massive cloud of smoke," she told The Sunday Times. Realizing the danger, she ran to the balcony and was left with the dangerous option of jumping from there to save her life. Fortunately, the neighbours came to her rescue and guided her to safety through the smoke and fire. The moment she came downstairs, she removed the cylinder of cooking gas in the pantry and kept it outside. She wanted to call the Fire Brigade, but by this time, the electricity lines and telephone lines were dead. It was the neighbours who gave frantic calls to the Fire Brigade. When the fire brigade arrived, the top storey, including the roof and the ceiling, were almost in ashes. The fire was spreading to the downstairs, but was put out by the firemen. The firemen said the mobile phone charger was the cause of the fire. The charger, which was kept plugged almost for a day, had become overheated. Ms. Devapriya now is suffering from shock. She refuses to climb upstairs and see the damage. "That's the room where we kept all the important documents such as land deeds. We kept our clothes in the wardrobes upstairs. All our valuable sarees, including my daughter's collection, were there. Now we have not even a cloth to wear. Even this cloth I am wearing was given by a neighbour." Ms. Devapriya said. The fire brigade is of the belief that the fire spread fast because the room contained inflammable material. "If the fire brigade got a bit late to come, the whole house may have been burnt," Ms. Denvapriya's son said. The damage is estimated to be around Rs. 25 million and the Devapriya family laments their failure to obtain an insurance cover. Fire officers said they had put out more than 340 fires so far this year and added most of these fires were caused due to negligence. In once incident, a family in Rajagiriya had lit up a candle during a power failure and left the house forgetting to blow off the candle. They had even seen the fire engines passing them by while they were having dinner at a restaurant. It was only upon their return that they had realized the fire engines had come to put out a fire at their house. By then it was too late. The fire officers advise people to switch off fans and electrical appliances, especially washing machines and irons, when they are not in use and check those appliances before they leave home or their offices. They also advise people not to keep inflammable clothes near meter boards and electric switches and adopt measures that would minimise damage in case of a fire caused by a short circuit. |
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