Family Cat Starts House Fire

[matcom]

<snip>

EAU CLAIRE, Wis. --This cat used up his nine lives. Fire officials are blaming a 20-pound cat for starting a town of Washington house fire that caused about $25,000 damage.

The gray and white cat apparently jumped on an electric range in the basement of a two-story home at about 4:30 a.m. Wednesday and turned on the push-button control, said Darrell Christy, the fire department's chief of operations. Plastic containers on top of the range smoldered.

"We eliminated everything except for the cat," Christy said.

A smoke detector alerted at least three people in the home, who were not hurt, Christy said.

The fire damaged part of the basement and smoke damaged much of the residence, he said.

The cat died, likely of smoke inhalation, he said.

Christy said a cat was blamed for an area house fire about five years ago, but that cat survived.

http://www.boston.com/news/odd/articles/2006/01/26/wis_fire_officials_blame_cat_for_fire?mode=PF

[Briarius]

1. a cat

why am I not surprised?:hide:

[pokerfan]

2. Trying to kill the dog, obviously

[Deja Q]

3. Now that's one hot pussy!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[coffeenap]

4. This happened to us last summer! Took out my daughter's room!

Son was home alone and had to crawl through the smoke to get out! We lost the cat but the firefighters gave oxygen to the dog and saved her! (Son was ok.) We have since rescued a new cat and have removed all lamps and cords!