No injuries in chair fire call
Middleton man temporarily homeless after chair goes up in flames
Middleton firefighters faced a house full of smoke Oct. 12 in a mid-afternoon call to 476 Main St. just east of the hospital – but it turned out the house wasn’t on fire. A stuffed armchair was.
Firefighters quickly assessed the situation, hauled the smoking chair out of the house and went back to see if that was all that was burning.
A 70-year-old man was in the house and had called 911. He was later seen in a green plastic lawn chair in the driveway where firefighters looked after him until paramedics arrived.
Firefighters put a ventilation fan in the home to clear the smoke. In the meantime, the chair fire was put out with a fire extinguisher and buckets of water.
It appears the fire may have been electrical in nature. A foam heating pad was found in the chair seat, burned beyond firefighter Scott Veinot’s ability to discern a brand name. The fire also burned the chair.
Veinot photographed the heating pad and will send the photos to the fire marshal’s office.
He said he was relieved the call ended positively with nobody hurt and the house intact. He said if it had happened at night it might have been an entirely different outcome.
Dan Bedell with Canadian Red Cross said the man has been displaced by the smoke inside the bungalow. He was checked for smoke inhalation at the nearby Soldiers Memorial Hospital and then released. Bedell said disaster volunteers with the Canadian Red Cross have arranged emergency lodging and food while cleanup and repairs are completed.