unfortunate news

[miguel camacho!]

well, i have been in utah since sunday for a snowboarding trip. just got back tonight about an hour and a half ago. last night, i was woken by a call from my roommate at about 1:30am utah time (about 3:30 am north carolina time). ends up there was a fire in our apartment. i just got back and have barely gotten a look at it, nor have i really gotten the scoop on the whole situation. the fire itself looks like it was relatively minor, it was in the living room, right next to my turtle tank. well anyway, it seems to be confined to a relatively small part of the wall, although the firemen trashed that corner of the apartment. i had my adult henkeli out in the living room, about 15 feet from where the fire broke out. i got back after dark and didnt have much time to look, didnt even get the time to move all my animals out. i am kind of expecting some loss from smoke inhalation, but i really dont know how bad it is yet. i move things from the apartment tomorrow. the only known "casualties" were the leopard gecko eggs i was incubating. hopefully everyone else survives the night.

so sorry for those of you who sent me messages i havent responded to yet, ill be around here and there till things get situated once more. wish my animals luck!

 

[Haroldo]

Really sorry to hear this Mike. Did the fire marshal ascertain the cause? Hopefully everybody will be fine...Keep us posted.

 

[L.A.C. Herps]

mike, that sounds really crappy. I hope all is well, and that the cause of the fire is known soon. Update needed as soon at possible!

 

[the moof]

ahh thats horrible. i hope all your animals are alright, and the costs for repair aren't tooo high :?

best of luck,
Mark

 

[Protean]

Mike,

Keep me updated regularly. Like i told you on the phone, I'll help anyway I can, not like you don't know that already.

Save all carcasses too. Refrigerate them and get them the Malinzak. Have him do a necropsy on them to ascertain their deaths, if any occur. He's the corpse expert (I'm not kidding either).

Thinking positively.

Jason P

 

[miguel camacho!]

well, it looks like only one fatality, that being a male phantasticus. i think i have been lucky, given the situation. all other animals seem ok at the moment, but i assume the effects of the smoke can carry on for the next week or two...only time will tell.

 

[klondike4001]

Sorry to hear it, good luck with everything.

 

[DDReptiles]

Sorry Mike to hear that Though it could of been a lot worse.

 

[miguel camacho!]

^fortunately, all those leos i got from you are in my care, and fared well through the whole ordeal. i had just gotten eggs from one of those females the week prior to my trip, and the firemen totally trashed the hovabator. but fortunately it was only a single clutch, and all the adults are doing just fine.

if there is anything positive to come of the whole situation, i moved back into my parents' house, which means i have the entire basement at my disposal, which has 10x more room than my apartment did for the herps.

 

[ReptileChick]

Man, that is horrible! Sorry for your losses, and good luck with the survivors!!

 

[Elizabeth Freer]

So sorry to hear this unfortunate news, Mike. Glad to hear that most critters seem to be doing OK.

What caused the fire?

 

[miguel camacho!]

ok, after speaking a little with the fire marshal, i do not have the complete story. however, an independent investigator was hired to find the exact fault. from what the fire marshal explained, the fire either started at the socket and spread through the wall, or started at the surge protector and then spread to the socket and into the wall. main thing everyone didnt understand initially is how in the world the circuit breaker wouldnt have tripped. as for how it was explained to me, you've got those "master" sockets throughout the place that will trip (you know, the sockets that have the test/reset buttons). anyhow, since that tripped, somehow the circuit breaker didnt trip. but you'd still think that the result should be the same, and if too much current is flowing or anything else goes wrong, it should trip and everything should turn off. bottom line, something went wrong (yea, i know that is obvious!). so hopefully sometime in the near future some sort of resolution will be made, and my roommate who had to claim so much on her renter's insurance wont get screwed by that, and instead the apartment housing company will have to compensate for her losses/repairs. on the other hand, as i think i mentioned before, the relative damage to property was minimal and mostly restricted to smoke damage.

 

[geckocrazy]

If the GFCI detected a ground fault like it is suppose to then it trips and the problem(short) loses power. The GFCI is the first outlet in the circuit and protects everything behind it. Once it trips it kills the power to the load side but the GFCI is still hot on the line side until reset. Unfortunately the arching probably created the fire before the GFCI tripped. By the way, i'm an electrician. Hope that is a little easier to understand.