Makeup mirror turns firestarter
A swivelling makeup mirror has sent a scorching beam of morning sun on to paper and started a bedroom fire with metre-high flames.
Porirua woman Margaret King said she used the mirror before heading to work on Wednesday.
Then her son, Sam King, the only person at home, called her shortly after 9am.
‘‘He was so upset, I could not work out what he was trying to tell me to start with.’’
Her son had been fighting a fire. It was initially suspected that King might have left her hair straightener on the dresser. But she had not used it that morning.
The culprit appeared to be the concave, magnifying side of her mirror. It was lined up with the incoming morning sun, and shot a beam of light on to the vaccination papers of her dog, Max, a dachshund puppy.
Sam King, a night shift worker, said he woke up groggy about 9am to the sound of a smoke alarm wailing.
He stumbled out of his bedroom, grabbed the hallway alarm from the wall and switched it off, then realised another alarm was sounding.
Then he noticed smoke rolling across the ceiling through the house.
By the time he found the fire, the flames were about a metre high, bursting from a set of drawers.
He sprinted out and found a bucket in the dining room and used it to pour water on the fire, which initially caused something to explode inside the flames.
‘‘Back in primary they tell you to stay low in a fire, I was trying to stay low, trying to get the flames out. But you cannot breathe the air, all you inhale is smoke – it is all you taste,’’ Sam King said.
He called 111 while ferrying a second bucket back to the fire, doused most of the flames, then headed outside and waited for firefighters.
The firefighters dampened down the smouldering remains on the dresser.
Porirua station officer Andy Tuffin said the mirror ‘‘more than likely’’ started the fire, combining with the sun to ignite nearby papers.
It was not the first mirror fire Tuffin had seen.
Spontaneously combusting towels, run through a dryer and folded, were also an occasional problem.
They might self-ignite if contaminated with the likes of linseed oil, he said.
‘‘They are two factors that are out there that people need to be aware of ... in 25 years, I have been to a number of incidents like that.’’
Tuffin said the fire could have spread through the house within minutes but the smoke alarms had done their job.
‘‘They were very effective in that incident, they did alert the occupant and he did respond to it.’’
Margaret King said they had specialist cleaners in the house since the fire, and the ceiling in the bedroom would need work.
She had lost a number of items but her son, her house, and Max the dachshund were all safe.
The house was insured.
The mirror, with some melted spots, was not destroyed in the fire.