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In today's paper (mar 23)(Star Ledger of Newark NJ) there was a story about a house fire in Teaneck NJ that claimed several lives. Seems to have been an electrical cause. But the reporter seems to have gotten it somewhat garbled. Seems that the fridge-freezer, and a washer and a dryer were all on the same 20A circuit, drawing 26 amps. (Though I doubt all three were on at the same time, seems the reporter just added the nameplate amp ratings together) (Still not a good idea all on the same circuit). "This overload caused the wiring in the freezer to degrade, that caused the fire". "Had the circuit breaker tripped, this fire wouldn't have happened."


House was built in the 1930's and maybe it was the old house wire was what degraded.
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This overload caused the wiring in the freezer to degrade, that caused the fire
Really? How would that be possible as the other loads do not pass through the freezer wiring. This must be one of those fire investigators that would let the AFCI manufactures off the hook? [Linked Image]
Lots of Federal Pacific panels in that area
...That's a fact,..Teaneck is my neighboring town to the south,and at first I actually had to think about if we were ever in that house,as we do alot of work in Teaneck.Turns out we weren't.My sincere condolences to the family.Ron F was correct tho,.. there's a "gold mine" in Federal Pacific up this way..3 out of 5 homes have them..
Russ
Have changed out a LOT of FPE panels here in NJ. Apparently, it was the popular brand of panel at one time, probably because it was manufactured locally (Newark).
Forget about CSI, and every other cop show you've seen. It's a pretty rare fire that gets more than a cursory glance- and most of those looking aren't really qualified.
What may have happened is that the insulation of the branch circuit wires degraded (turned to dust) after years of being overloaded (hot). Or a receptacle failed- those things don't last forever. Or there was an unrelated problem with the appliance itself.

Take news reports with a LARGE grain of salt. Not only is your typical reporter bounced from covering society news to foreign affairs- thus knows knothing about the subject of the report- but his, and his editors- are often borderline illiterate.
I read about it in the New York Slime...I mean Times, and it said the same thing. I agree, it didn't add up. But it does sound like badly overloaded circuit and the breaker not tripping.


Most of the time, newspaper/news reports contain gross inaccuracies and errors as they relate to decribing the cause of electrical fires.

Peter
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Forget about CSI, and every other cop show you've seen. It's a pretty rare fire that gets more than a cursory glance- and most of those looking aren't really qualified.

I'll second that. Usually the FD cares about Arson or All Other. Beyond that they look for the insurance comapany to pickup the ball (and cost) to finish it out. (At least that's the way it always was with me.)
Has anyone ever seen a 120v dryer?
Not I. I have seen a 240 washer but never a dryer. Could this really be?
Mybe the reporter is really right and they seriesd everything on a 240v circuit.
To bad people died. No smoke detectors eather?
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Has anyone ever seen a 120v dryer?

Probably a gas dryer. Still needs electricity to power the motor that rotates the drum.

Paper said that there were at least one functioning smoke detector, but maybe it wasn't in a good location. Also one of the bedrooms had a windows blocked by an air conditoner and another by a bed, making egress difficult.
... I have to meet with the Teaneck Electrical Inspector on Thursday,next week,and I'll try and get an answer as to what they think happened..I'll keep you guys posted..
Russ
The only 110-volt all-electric dryers I've seen are portable models that can fit in a closet. I have one of those.

The large all-electric dryers usually run off 220 volts
Getting a little off-thread here, buy...I have several 110 volt dryers.
Two are quite small, part of a "stack" washer/dryer assembly. These assemblies have separate cords for the washer and dryer.
The other is somewhat larger, about 2/3 the size of a "standard" dryer.
Any of them are very SLOW in drying clothes, but they do work after a fashion.
Oh, and they use a standard 15 amp circuit.
120 Volt dryers are very common in apartments and usually have wheels so they can be roll around. And most gas dryers do require 120 volts also. If the wiring in the freezer caused the fire there had to be a fault in the freezer. Other loads on the same circuit would not have caused this.
Our next door neighbor had a small fire in their freezer once but it was because of their cat that made a nest in the condenser
coils for its kittens when it was pregnant. The cover was removed from the back of it.
Hmm,
This story sort of sounds a little silly IMO.
Did the article actually say where the fire started, in the first place?.
For a newspaper reporter to hazard a guess as to the cause of an incident like this and then put it in print, sort of explains why journalists don't tend to have a very high popularity rating with us FF's.
What I would be most interested in however, is the reason why the Breaker never tripped?. [Linked Image]
Why should the breaker trip? It is quite possible for an overheated conductor to reach the ignition temperature of flammable materials close by without exceeding the trip amps, surely?
English Bob.
Welcome to the forum Alan.

In a residence the wiring, if installed correctly should not exceed 60 C under any conditions.

I can not think of any common matrial with an ignition point under 60 C.

Bob
I must confess to knowing only a little about American house-wiring, as a Brit living in rural France, but I do watch "This Old House" and "NYW" on satellite. A fault does not have to be in the fixed house-wiring. Practically very appliance is sold with a 'flex' made up of multiple conductors, which are vulnerable. Any idiot can (and I did!) drape the flex anywhere he or she likes. In my case, I parked the washing machine nipping the cable, where the machine vibration could mangle it for several months and break some of the conductor wires. There's no overload, the appliance is using normal amps, the house wiring is ok, no electrician is at fault. I won't say 'to Code', because here in France there are few if any Codes- as my Maire says- "You 'ave builded a 'ouse. It felled over. What has that got to do with ME!?"
The flex got hot- it's copper area was too small, and the insulation degraded- quote "turned to dust".
I think the polymers they put in the PVC to make it flexible evaporate with heat. The wires are now exposed to oxidation, and further damage occurs. In our case my wife smelled burning plastic and pulled out the plug, but not before the flex had scorched a neat black slot in the plastic trim and charred the unit side. But what might have happened if the fault were parked over a newspaper on the floor (ie Dog's-Dinner-Place) and the local temperature had risen to 451F? The breaker will not operate unless excessive amps flow. I thought such a thing would be impossible- Why didn't the live(hot)/neutral/earth(ground) short? Why didn't all that carbon conduct and short?
Ah, the mysteries of Elec-trickery!
Family of Young N.J. Fire Victims Holding Fire Officials Responsible

Updated: 03-24-2005 12:23:24 PM
E-MAIL THIS STORY PRINT THIS STORY



JIM ALCORN
GRIEF: Mourners leave a Teaneck synagogue after yesterday's funeral for the children.



DAN KADISON, JOHN DOYLE and JEANE MacINTOSH
Courtesy of New York Post


March 24, 2005 -- Fire officials who investigated and dismissed a smoke call at a New Jersey home that later erupted in an inferno, killing four children, fear the family will hold them responsible for the tragedy.

"I'm sure there'll be litigation," one official said.

A preliminary investigation by the Teaneck Fire Department found an overloaded 20-amp circuit caused the motor in a basement freezer to burn out and start the fire.

Neighbors and friends of the decimated family said yesterday they were still troubled by the department's actions on the night of the blaze.

"I just don't understand how they could go in that house, find nothing, then allow those children back in, and then that house goes up in flames," said one family friend.

Insurance company agents combed through the house, taking pictures, and workers boarded up the windows as 2,000 friends, relatives, classmates and teachers filed into the Seidenfeld family's synagogue, Congregation Keter Torah, to say farewell to the four tragic youngsters.

Noticeably absent was their mother, Philyss, 42, who remains hospitalized in critical condition.

Her children's four small caskets, draped in black cloth and lined up side by side in front of the altar, brought sobs to most eyes in the packed sanctuary.

The tears continued during the hourlong service as the four siblings were lovingly remembered by their rabbis, teachers, relatives and friends.

Too distraught to speak, their father, Howard Seidenfeld, sat alongside his three surviving girls as a friend read his tender words of tribute to the children he's lost:

Ari, 15 — "The best buddy and friend a father and mother can have."

Noah, 6 — "Handsome, sweet and always ready to tell his mother and teachers how beautiful they are."

Adira, 5 — "Smart and beautiful with golden hair and a serious smile."

Natan, 4 — "Carefree, loving, always happy, always ready to play the mascot."

Seidenfeld, 41, recalled family outings to Sesame Place and Dorney Park, and Sunday barbecues and Friday chicken soup.

Family friend Elaine Weinberger remembered just days ago seeing Adira "scooping up earth" to celebrate the arrival of spring and Natan "waving in the window with a big smile.

"We are all here asking the question, 'Why such a short life?' " she said.

Rabbi Shmuel Goldstein, principal of the Yeshiva of North Jersey, read words Ari had written in a school paper: "Life is too short to waste on anger."

The inferno erupted early Tuesday morning — just hours after firefighters had checked out a report of smoke inside the house, found "nothing wrong" and gave homeowner Seidenfeld and the six children who were living at home the all-clear to return.
Am I the only one who believes that the overload is merely coincidence and has nothing to do with whether or not the motor decided to take a dump that day and cause the fire?

Overloaded circuits should trip breakers and overheat wires, but each device on the circuit should operate normally. The only exception I can think of is if the motor was trying to draw 25A and perhaps it only had 16 ga wire to it or something. Although even in that case, the wire, not the motor, would be vulnerable.

How about its just an old motor that decided to fail in a horrible way that day?
jdadamo:

Generally speaking, an overloaded circuit would tend to have excessive voltage drop which is enough to cause a motor to fail. Most motors will not start or draw excessive current if the voltage is much below 85% of nameplate (>15% voltage drop).

And since a motor starting can create a voltage drop, the freezer's motor in this case would be making a bad situation worse.

This type of tragedy is one I've read of too many times. Family smells smoke, fire dept. comes, finds nothing, leaves, hours later a blaze starts. Many times cause was later found to be electrical.

I have a friend who is a firefighter, I will ask him if the fire dept's. training covers detection/recognition of the unique nature of fire started by overloaded electrical circuits/equipment.

My hunch here is that without tearing open walls, etc. the fire dept. really has no way of verifying possible ignition sources. IF the dept. happens to have an IR camera device (I saw one in use at a smoke call in a $75 mil. mansion I was working in) they might have found the potential hazard. Otherwise it would be a matter of the firefighters seeing visible signs of smoke/fire or being in the right place at the right time as it were.

In the mansion call, it was determined that an air handler motor burned out. Even though the caause was found, the fire chief reccomended that the staff maintain "observational" status for at least the next six hours and immediately call in anything out of the ordinary.
Partially un-related story:

I walked out of a job-site one day to find the whole street crawling in Fire-fighters, on ladders, on roofs, wandering in and out of buildings. I'm talking 10+ trucks, and nearly 50 guys. After a few minutes, I had to ask, "wheres the fire?" One of the guys just says, "Well we dont know, we got a call for smoke, and when we drove up here, there was smoke, lots of it, not sure where it came from, and we get here, NO SMOKE!" After an hour they figured it was a resturaunt hood duct, that had self extinquished. I guess they found soot instead of grease in it, and warned the resteraunt manager to get it looked at. Next day at lunch time the thing went up like a charcoal starter. I guess the guy didn't listen.

Back to thread though, I have seen 20A FPE's hold almost 40A, and not trip on dead shorts either. Then again I have seen this with other breakers too. A lost neutral can do some wierd things too. 220v on the freezer motor, or anything else could ignite it as well.

And just because the Fire Dept. was there, and didn't find anything first time around, because they didn't tear the house apart, these people knew something was wrong. Dare I say it, although it is tragic, putting blame on the fire dept. for something like this is just more of the American disease of 'find someone to sue'. As I am sure if they knew where the smoke had come from on the first call, they would have done something about it.
mxslick thanks for the explanation. I forgot about the role voltage drop might play in this scenario.
Even assuming that the fire was started by the appliance....and it may very well have been, with the smoke dissapating until the next refrigeration cycle, when the insulation ignited, etc....I can only note one thing:

SMOKE DETECTORS HAVE BEEN AVAILABLE FROM THE MID SEVENTIES! Now, tell me which is cheaper (and more likely to be useful)- an $8 battery powered smoke detector, or an attorney's retainer?

Even small amounts of electricity can start a fire...my toaster is a good example of this. Breakers respond slowly to small overloads. You can weld, for heavens' sake, with what comes out of a 20 amp receptacle.

Perfection is something found only in the next world.
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Fire officials who investigated and dismissed a smoke call at a New Jersey home that later erupted in an inferno, killing four children, fear the family will hold them responsible for the tragedy.

"I'm sure there'll be litigation," one official said.
I find it rather strange that a Fire Department could be held responsible for an overloaded circuit.
Heat imaging equipment or not, just how far do you have to go?.
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