OT: Ken Brody Family

Wed Sep 16 21:34:15 PDT 2020

I'm glad you all are OK. It sounds like it could have been far worse, and 
a lot of credit goes to Alex.

I, for one, don't mind some clutter on the filePro list, especially if 
it's the good news, crisis-averted kind. I'm writing this from Portland, 
Oregon, where we're hunkering down indoors to avoid the massive smoke from 
massive forest fires.

If you all don't mind the OT clutter, this strikes me as a classic 
who-done-it. My first thought was the rabbit, but that may be the Elmer 
Fudd in me. But it sounds like the rabbit (wabbit) can't get onto the 
desk. Then I remembered that there was a cat involved, and I've seen 
enough cat videos to know they're very capable (and culpable) of a lot of 
nastiness. Too bad you don't have security footage!

After a full ten minutes of my best Sherlocking, I propose a theory. 
Animal hair accumulated in the computer fan. The fan overheated and sent 
burning material upward to the underside of the hutch, where it ignited or 
just melted the plastic surface material (or varnish). That moved 
laterally to the middle of the hutch where it dripped down onto the desk, 
where it ignited paper (if you're not paperless) or a monitor or a 
scanner. This flamed up and charred the underside of the hutch, hiding the 
tracks of earlier combustive activity. So it was the cat's fault, albeit 
indirectly.

As they say in Clue, "Can you prove me wrong?"

I'll shut up now.

On Wed, 16 Sep 2020, Laura Brody via Filepro-list wrote:

> Our eldest, Alex, woke up to use the bathroom just before 6 AM. When he
> came out of the bathroom, the smoke detector was screaming and there was
> smoke everywhere. He ran upstairs and woke everyone up. All of the kids and
> I were out of the house in under 2 minutes. Alex called 911 to get the fire
> department then he called my mother (she owns the building). I think she
> was there before the fire truck arrived. Matthew saw that the fire was on
> my desk, right near the front door. He ran into the kitchen and got the
> fire extinguisher. It was empty or wasn't working. He went to the next door
> neighbor and got his fire extinguisher. He used that and a towel on the
> flames that were starting, putting out the fire momentarily. The firemen
> got there in minutes. It flamed up and they hit it with the water hose. The
> fire was out.
>
>  The cat and rabbit were still in the house. Once the firemen let us, the
> kids ran in and got my asthma inhaler and some pants for me and clothes for
> the other kids. They looked for the pets and found the cat in the attic
> bedroom under a bed. It was over an hour after the firemen left before we
> found the rabbit. He was alive and hiding near my desk. He was breathing
> funny and shaking. We took both to the vet for smoke inhalation treatment
> (oxygen box)
>
>  The firemen couldn't figure out what caused the fire. Neither can we. The
> inside of the hutch above my desk was burned the most. It had books and
> paper in it. Nothing plugged in or batteries in there. My computer is on
> top of the desk, filthy, but not burned. Ditto on the 2 monitors, power
> hubs, Dymo printer and Neat scanner on my desk. I leave my computer on most
> of the time, so it was on before the fire started. Buns has chewed my
> speaker wire and keyboard wire in the past, so 2-3 months ago when I
> upgraded my computer, I moved my computer from the floor to on top of the
> desk. Any wires under the desk are covered with automotive wire protectors.
> A few things that were on top of the hutch got melted and burned, but none
> of them were plugged in either.
>
>  The firemen broke windows and threw everything next to my desk on the
> floor. The soot is covering everything. We didn't lose much to the fire
> itself, but the soot cleanup is going to take a while. They turned off the
> electric, so we are sorting stuff while wearing headlamps. The smell of
> burnt plastic is horrible and it is on EVERYTHING.
>
>  We are all camped out like refugees in a spare bedroom and the living
> room at my parent's house. Fortunately, no one was burned or needed to go
> to the hospital (the pets were fine and we took them home on Saturday).  My
> desk is garbage, but my computer survived.
>
>  Kristina (Evan - transgender), set up a GoFundMe page. If you want to
> give us a hand, we would appreciate it. www.gofundme.com/f/24ub0ffaeo
>
>  If anyone wants to know more about the fire, call me at 914-739-5004 or
> email me. I'd rather not clutter the filePro list with a ton of non-filePro
> chatter.
>
> Laura Brody
> laura at hvcomputer.com
> -------------- next part --------------
> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> URL: <http://mailman.celestial.com/pipermail/filepro-list/attachments/20200916/585be387/attachment.html>
> _______________________________________________
> Filepro-list mailing list
> Filepro-list at lists.celestial.com
> Subscribe/Unsubscribe/Subscription Changes
> http://mailman.celestial.com/mailman/listinfo/filepro-list
>

Regards,
....Bob Rasmussen,   President,   Rasmussen Software, Inc.

personal e-mail: ras at anzio.com
  company e-mail: rsi at anzio.com
           voice: (US) 503-624-0360 (9:00-6:00 Pacific Time)
             fax: (US) 503-624-0760
             web: http://www.anzio.com
  street address: Rasmussen Software, Inc.         NEW ADDRESS AS OF AUGUST 1, 2020
                  8835 SW Canyon Lane, Suite 401
                  Portland, OR  97225  USA