Dog Starts House Fire…Sort Of
When firefighters tracked down the source of a house fire in Washington that caused around $200,000 worth of damage, they came upon an unusual culprit: the dogs water bowl.
It turns out that sunshine beaming through the dog’s glass water bowl apparently acted like a magnifying glass; beaming intense sunlight that ignited a fire on the wooden deck, according to fire department Lieutenant Eric Keenan.
“It’s so unusual,” remarks Keenan, who says he’s never seen a fire start this way. “It was just a really weird set of circumstances. It may have actually had the optical qualities to act as a magnifying glass and under the midday sun start the deck on fire,” he told a local TV station.
Of course, pets can sometimes cause house fires when they knock over a space heater or a candle, or perhaps when they chew through wires, but apparently, now there’s a new fire hazard posed by your pet: their glass water bowl.