Thawing pipes with heat gun sets wall smoking in Camden home

Tue, 02/14/2017 - 8:00am

    CAMDEN — Firefighters from four towns — Camden, Hope, Lincolnville and Rockport — responded to a report of a structure fire in Camden early Saturday morning, Feb. 11, but the damage was quickly contained, and localized to one bathroom wall.

    The call came at 5:30 a.m., as the homeowner on Gould Street in Camden told Knox County Regional Communications Center that smoke was filling the home and fire was in the bathroom wall.

    When Camden firefighters arrived, they extinguished the bathroom fire, which started when the homeowner attempted to thaw pipes behind the first floor toilet with an electric heat gun.

    The homeowner had apparently turned the heat gun on, and then went to sleep, only to awaken to the smell of smoke in the house.

    Firefighters tended to the situation, and cleared the scene. There were no functioning smoke detectors in the home, so the fire department left four new ones with the homeowner.