~It was only about 11 A.M. as we arrived on the scene, but she was stumbling and staggering around the front yard. She reaked of alcohol and in her slurred voice kept repeating, "I don't smoke in bed", "I don't smoke in bed", "I was taking a nap on top of my bed".~

~The firefighters entered the smoking house with a hose line to extinguish the smoldering bed. Soon a call came from within the house, "man down, we need some help." Several men with airmasks on ran to their aid and came out carrying Danny who was gasping for fresh air, he was give oxygen and transported to the nearby hospital for treatment of smoke inhalation, fires biggest killer.~

~The inside of the house was a mess, wine bottles, glasses, and cigarette butts all over. No damage could be seen that was caused by flames, only smoke damage thruout the house, this should have been a fatality fire by all reason.~

~The bedroom was really a mess, how could human beings live this way? I've seen cleaner chicken coops. Dirty cloths were in piles all over, it was hard to walk without stumbling over them. The empty wine bottles had not been taken out for weeks or this woman had a drinking problem. She had came very close to ending it, as well as all her other problems.~

~It was surprising to see the double bed was made, it was still smoldering but it had not burned like a cigarette caused fire and there wasn't a baseboard heater or space heater near the bed. It was then that I noticed the electric cord and thermostat control for the electric blanket, and the telltale hair thin curly wires in the smoldering remains on top of the bed.~

~I opened up the unburned thermostat control and found the electric contact points(what you hear clicking off and on)fused together, the colors on the brass containing the contact points were the typical rainbow of black, purple, red, orange and yellow caused by the heat of the "fusing".~

~When I interviewed the woman as to what she had been doing prior to the fire she said, "I was tired so I layed down on top of my bed to take a nap and when I woke up it was so hot and smokey and the blanket was was smoldering all around me." I asked her if the electric blanket was turned on and she said, "I never turn it off, should I ?." This was the first of a long series of electric blanket fires. Had the others been "cause undetermined" as we so often read in the newspapers and put down on our reports?~

~The Seattle Sonics were playing basketball on TV in the fire station. The question on everyone's mind was, "Will they be going to the playoff's?". Just then the fire bell rang and automaticly we all jumped to our feet, Carl's coffee cup sailed across the floor from the arm of his chair. The comments began as we raced to "bunker-up" and mount the trucks, "Why can't people have fires after the game?, "I hope it's only a false alarm so we can get back to the game", and "Why do most of the fires have to be at night"?

~The caller had said her bed was on fire, everybody was out of the house, and someone would meet us at the street to direct us to the house. The small house was located at the end of a long dirt road, it would have been a hard one to find unless the sky had been lit up by flames. It was a good thing they had the sense to send someone out to direct us in or we would never hear the end of it.~

~"Good" I thought as we pulled up in front of the house, "they closed the doors as they left the house, otherwise the in rushing fresh air would have fed the fire and it would have been totally involved in fire." Get on the airmasks and lay a line" was ordered as we dismounted the trucks.~

~The fire had been confined to the foot of the double bed in the master bedroom, there was a lot of heavy smoke but no flames. It did not appear as a cigarette caused fire and there was no other source of ignition near the bed. No ashtrays were in the bedroom or any other room in the house.~

~It was then when I seen the thermostat control head on the nightstand, it was turned on high, but the electric blanket was not on fire, only the foot of the bed. Down there I found the hair thin coiled heating element wires, part of the blanket containing them had been tucked in there. Could it really be?.~

~I took the thermostat control head apart and the contact points were "fused" together and those same beautiful rainbow colors were on the brass containing the contact points. Yes, it was another "over heated" electric blanket!."~

~In interviewing the lady about the blanket she said, "this was the first time I tucked in the blanket because it was always cold at my feet and the blanket is always falling off the bed." She also said she turns on the blanket control at 7 P.M. so the bed will be warm when she goes to bed.~

~She was lucky she had not gone to bed sooner, and had the the carbon monoxide from the slow smoldering mattress overcome and take the lives of her and her three small children(no smoke detectors then) We seem to learn something new about fire every so often, but most of the time it is after lives are lost.~

~The couple had just returned from work at The Boeing Company, they both worked the same shift and at the same plant so they shared a ride with three others in the same neighborhood. They seen red lights flashing in front of their home at the same time. The husband commented to his wife, "Looks like someone had a fire", then he seen the firefighters comming out of their front door with a smoldering mattress.~

~It had been a neatly kept house, with the best of furniture, I guess you can afford it with two people in the house workng. But it was a real mess now, heat, smoke, and soot can really do a lot of damage. The walls and ceiling were covered with black soot and orange stains as well as the drapes, curtins, towles and furniture. If you have not seen a house after a smoldering fire, you have not seen a black sink and bathtub, the heat bakes the smoke on all glass items inside the house. This will really cost the Insurance Company (you and me). And all because of what?~

~It was not hard to find the point of origin of the fire as it was all centered in the bedroom. Now to find the cause. The smoldering fire started on tom of the bed, burnt pieces of bedspread and blankets lay on the floor on both sides of the bed. It was not a deep seated burn like a cigarette causes, it had smoldered across the surface equally. The drapes being at the highest point where the superheated gasses form also had ignited and dropped down on the floor under the windows, smoldered and whent out. This also would have been a fatal fire, had anyone been sleeping in the house without smoke detectors.~

~Carefully I began removing debris from on top of the mattress, there I found the tiny hair thin curly wires going up and down from the top to the bottom on the mattress. Another electric blanket had turned into a hotplate! I found the thermostat control head and pried open the melted plastic cover. Again I found the contact points fused together and the same identical rainbow color pattern. What was causing this?~

~I had to wait some time for the homeowner's wife to calm down before I could ask her any questions. It was a great shock to come home and find all the you had worked and saved for destroyed. But it will happen again and again as long as there are men, women and children, fuel, oxygen and heat.~

~It was the first thing the woman said to her husband that lit up the light in my head. "Remember that beautiful bedspread" she said. I asked her if the bedspread had been over the electric blanket, and had she left the blanket heat turned on?. "Yes", she said, "I always make the bed befor we go to work and just this morning I told my husband I had forgot to turn off the electric blanket."~

~Was I getting closer to the answer.? So many things are so common in these bed fires with electric blankets.~

~A few days later I learned more about the cause of bed fires involving electric blankets, but this time a life was just about lost. It was getting ate, almost too late.~

~It was almost noon when the caller yelled into the fir phone, "save him, please save him, he's going to burn up." It's really hard to get the needed information from a person reporting a fire, quite often they hang up the phone before they give the dispatcher the address. Then they get mad because the fire trucks never get there, and all we can do is wait for another call. This time we got the address.~

~The firefighters were about six blocks away "drilling", that is practicing laying a hose from a fire hydrant down the street to to supply another truck with water. Firefighters do not sit in the station all day drinking coffee and watching TV as most people think. The call came over the radios from the dispatcher, they left the hose laying in the street and proceeded to the fire. Only a few minutes earlier Wayne had commented, "I think I smell a mattress burning", and Bert had told him, "We have been fighting so many bed fires, now you think you smell them." Wayne was right.~

~We could see him before we got to the house, the man was slumped over the window sill on the upper floor, smoke and fire gasses were rushing out the window around him. Flames could be seen thru the window on the floor below him, the whole house would soon be in the "red". It was a good thing we had been so close when the call came in. A call went out for the aid-car, that man would need oxygen and a hospital emergency room if he was still alive. "There may be more in there, radio for a ambulance", ordered the Chief.~

~Hose lines were layed to the front door and window where flames could be seen, firefighters were sent to the roof to "ventilate" the smoke and heat, and a ladder was raised to rescue the man hanging out the window.~

~The man was unconscious, his skin very pink but unburnt, he was given oxygen and transported to the hospital. The fire seen thru the window was "knocked down" from the outside and firefighters with airmasks on advanced into the house in search of fire and victims. The fire had been confined to the bedroom where we could see the flames, it had started to spread thru the doorway and across the hall ceiling after the man had opened the window upstairs, creating a draft of fresh air as the smoke rushed outside."~

~The bedroom was the only room damaged by fire, it had been confined to the lower portion of the double bed for some time before the drapes and curtins ignited and dropped to the floor. The upper part of the bed was covered only with the lower sheet, the upper sheet, blankets and bedspread appeared to have been crumpled and doubled back over the lower part of the bed where the fire had started.~

~Shifting thru the burnt remains at the bottom end of the bed I located? Yes those curley hair thin wires, an electric blanket again! The blanket had not been tucked in at the foot of the bed nor a sorce of ignition such as a space heater. I had to find the thermostat control head. It was melted on top of the nightstand, but was still intact enough to see the contact points fused togather, and on the bottom side of the brass containg them I could see that same rainbow of colors, the top was covered with melted plastic.~

~I went outside to get some fresh air and John was comforting a crying elderly lady, she was the homeowner who had been visiting her husband in a nursing home and had just arrived to find the fire trucks there and wanted to get inside and see what damage the fire did to her home. She said she and her resently devorced son lived in the house. She slept downstairs and he had the room upstairs. I told her that her son was in the hospital and the fire had started in her bed.~

~I ashed her if she had made the bed up and shut off the electric blanket when she got up and she said, "No I thru back the covers because I was going to change the sheets today and after I was with my husband awhile I remembered I did not turn the blanket off so I came home early and found you people here, you really messed up my house and broke my vase."~

~I explained to her that her electric blanket caused the fire and she said, "I should have made my bed." Maybe that was a clue to this fire.~

~Several more electric blanket caused fires started with the bed covers thrown back over the electric blankets or with the beds made up with other blankets or bedspreads on top of them. I ran tests with old and new electric blankets by soldering the contact points togather, others I doubled over and still others I placed blankets and bedspreads of them, I watched them turn into "hotplates" as the blankets started scorching and smoking in the pattern those curly hair thin wires were in. It was time something was done. I made up a report and sent them with photos I had taken to the United States Consumer Product Safty Commission and made news releases to the newspapers.~

~In August of 1978 I recieved a forworded letter from an Attorney in Indianapolis, Indianna, he was representing a cliant in litigation in which he was attempting to establish that an electric blanket caused a fire which destroyed a home because it was defective and was trying to show the manufactures had not properly put users under notice of any such danger. I pointed out that just like people dying with smoke detectors installed in their home, HAD THEY READ THE DIRECTIONS enclosed with the products it never woud have happened. Enclosed with his letter was something I had never seen in print, the "paper" I had written, "The Cause Of Electric Blanket Fires" Something had been done, somebody else cared. PLEASE READ THE DIRECTIONS.~

~I have the GREATEST Cyber Pen Pal in England who is truly a FRIEND. I sent him this page and I thought you would like to share his experiences with fire. Bert my friend I hope you do not mind. God Bess You and Iris~

Hello Lloyd, I read with interest your account of the number of domestic fires caused by miss use of electric blankets. Just shows that you can't beat the old-fashioned methods. Let's face it, no one ever caught fire in bed using a hot water bottle, did they ! I've also heard of  young couples who, though they never actually caught alight, did  lay in bed smoking  after sex.

I can only recall three examples of my own experiences with indoor fires. First was as a young soldier,when I entered a smoke filled barrack room because I thought that another soldier was in there. As it turned out,the smoke was too thick for me to stay inside without breathing apparatus and the guy I went in to 'rescue' had already left, and the building was not on fire either. What had happened was that a couple of officers,seeking to play a practical joke at the expense of the privates, had placed a large military smoke bomb in a corridor behind the barrack room door.Apart from filling the place with smoke, it had also damaged the barrack room's back exit beyond repair. If an ordinary squaddie had done that, he would have been charged and ended up in detention, as it was officers, it was put down to laddish high jinks and they were quietly told not to do it again.

Second occasion was when my young wife forgot to turn the gas ring off under a frying pan after serving dinner. We were quietly enjoying our meal when we heard the noise of plaster falling from a ceiling, when I saw what was happening, I switched off the gas,grasped the pan by the handle and walked backwards with it down a flight of stairs,along a short passage and out into the back yard, where I was able to place it on the floor in safety. Then went back in to find that,fortunately, the ceiling had not in fact caught fire only started to come down from the heat.

My final adventure with fire  was when the women who lived in the next house to us, while frying fish & chips, went upstairs to get something from a bedroom. While she was there the telephone rang so she took the call  on the bedroom extension. Chatting to a friend, she completely forgot about her cooking situation downstairs until too late. She rang the fire service and then fled the house. I assured myself that both her and her children were out, then went into the house to see what I could do. When I arrived at the open kitchen door I found that the ceiling was already itself ablaze and the fat on the cooker was emitting too much smoke and heat for me to approach close. Too much for me to handle alone, so I firmly closed the door shut and went back outside to await the firemen. The engines arrived quickly and dealt  with the problem before it had spread too far. The leading officer complimented me on the prompt and appropriate action that I had taken which had effectively limited the speed and spread of the fire. The funny thing about this last affair concerned my  daughter - sweet sixteen at the time and wearing the latest teenage  fashion in tight fitting ' toreador' pants'. We asked the firemen if they would like a cup of tea. We made a large pot full, filled a tray with about a dozen mugs and then handed it to our daughter to take outside to all the young lads. For her help and kindness she suffered 10 minutes of ribald male chauvinistic good humour, mostly worded around the tight fitting trousers she was wearing. Mum,Dad and the Chief Officer stood there laughing while the lads enjoyed their joke at my daughters expense. ( She enjoyed the male attention too, of course ). You, being yourself an ex-smokebandit, would appreciate that situation and the use of humour to discharge the tension that was left over in the lads after putting out the blaze.

While a teenaged soldier, I did fight one rather nasty  bush fire. At the camp I was in at the time we had to mount a regular local heathland  fire piquet during the spring and summer months. On the very first occasion that I was delegated for this duty, we had a 'call-out'. We were the first unit in (a dozen lads and an officer), the woodland was well alight and it was obvious that we would need help so the back up and reserve units were also called out. There was no nearby water for the fire service to use and the method of dealing with the blaze was by beating. We were all young and fit lads and we fought that fire for an hour and a half before we began to gain control. Our officer was particularly pleased as we were the first group to gain control of our section, but we were exhausted. We had been beating hard with only a handkerchief round our faces for protection and had in fact been forced back about a hundred yards before we stopped it.  There was a lane nearby and a house opposite, only about twenty yards from where we had won our battle. We all sat down on the ground at the side of the road trying to recuperate our drained energy. Out of the house opposite came the owner, a retired army officer (a colonel,I think). "Oh !" he said "you've got it out, jolly well done. Last time a fire crossed the road it cost me drinks all round. "  He then told us that there was a maid and butler in the house and if we went to the kitchen they would give us a drink of water.  Bear in mind, we had just controlled a fire that if it had continued would have crossed the road and burnt his bloody house down to the ground. Anyway, we did cross the road and go to the kitchen. About 40 young and very thirsty soldiers. The maid and the butler were marvellous. They worked like beavers to serve us with large jugs of water until our thirst was satisfied. I think we must have drunk at least a gallon each, the sweetest water I had ever tasted in my life. It was not their house, but they at least appreciated the efforts we had put in to save the fire spreading. The other units went back to camp. We remained and our officer said that as the duty unit we had to maintain a presence at the site all night to see that the blaze did not start up again. He said that four would have to stay until midnight, four would return after supper to cover until 4 am, and the last lot would have to cover from 4am until 8 am. Four of us lads immediately volunteered to stay on until midnight. Our officer was most impressed, commended us and promised that when we were eventually transported back to our camp  he would personally see that there would be a very good supper waiting  for us (and there was). What he failed to appreciate in praising our keenness, was that we four, all from the same squad and good friends, had already figured out  that the ones who volunteered to remain behind and stay until midnight, would then be able to go back, go to their bunks and sleep without the bind of having to get up again in the middle of the night to return to the scene of the fire for four hours. That's it for tales of my duties in the service of King and Country. More another time.

To-day, November 11th, is Remembrance Day, both here and in the USA. To-day is when we remember those who sacrificed on our behalf in two world wars. In the UK  it is 'Poppy Day', people buy small artificial red poppies which are worn as a reminder of the poppy fields of Flanders where so many died. The money raised by the selling of the buttonholes goes to the ex-servicemens charities.  At 11-O-Clock there is a two minute period of silence. A cannon is fired and the country comes to a halt. Businesses stop work, shops stop trading, trains in stations are delayed and buses pull to the side of the road. In many busy streets traffic halts and people stand together in silence to mark the occasion.  Iris and I were in a shop in a large London shopping precinct. At eleven, the tills closed and staff and customers together stood in silence to pay their homage. "At the going down of the sun and in the mornings, we will remember them "

My son is coming here this week to make changes to my computer internet programme. He has promised me that this will substantially increase it's speed. In fact, it will be so fast that you will be getting replies to your e-mails before you have finished sending them. They will be so fast that I will have to stop sending them over the Atlantic and send them the long way round by the west to east route to slow them down a bit. This means that I may have to write the address in Japanese.   All the Best   Bert