ST. GEORGE – Firefighters responded to a call of excessive smoke in the second story of an apartment complex Thursday night. The culprit – a clothes dryer.
“Neighbors smelled burning and went to check out what was going on,” Bryn Parastino said, “when they knocked on the door they felt it was hot and called 9/11.”
St. George Fire Chief Robert Stoker said a downstairs neighbor in a four-plex apartment building at 400 E. Riverside Drive called 911 around 9 p.m. and reported smelling smoke coming in from the apartment above. When fire crews arrived, Stoker said they discovered the upstairs unit “was completely full of smoke.”
The fire was centered around a clothes dryer in the upstairs apartment, Stoker said. The dryer apparently experienced some kind of malfunction.
“Once in awhile we’ll get (a dryer) will overheat or malfunction,” the Fire Chief said.
Most of the physical damage was isolated to the dryer, though the upstairs apartment does have an extensive amount of smoke damage, Stoker said. Some of the neighboring apartments also suffered various levels of smoke damage.
No injuries were reported. Aside from the downstairs resident who called 911, Stoker said no one else in the four-plex was home when the fire occurred.
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Attentive neighbors alerted 911, St. George Fire Department responded to a dryer on fire at the Riverside Apartments, St. George, Utah, Aug. 8, 2013 | Photo by and courtesy of Bryn M. Parastino, St. George News
Attentive neighbors alerted 911, St. George Fire Department responded to a dryer on fire at the Riverside Apartments, St. George, Utah, Aug. 8, 2013 | Photo by and courtesy of Bryn M. Parastino, St. George News
Attentive neighbors alerted 911, St. George Fire Department responded to a dryer on fire at the Riverside Apartments, St. George, Utah, Aug. 8, 2013 | Photo by and courtesy of Bryn M. Parastino, St. George News
Attentive neighbors alerted 911, St. George Fire Department responded to a dryer on fire at the Riverside Apartments, St. George, Utah, Aug. 8, 2013 | Photo by and courtesy of Bryn M. Parastino, St. George News
Attentive neighbors alerted 911, St. George Fire Department responded to a dryer on fire at the Riverside Apartments, St. George, Utah, Aug. 8, 2013 | Photo by and courtesy of Bryn M. Parastino, St. George News
Attentive neighbors alerted 911, St. George Fire Department responded to a dryer on fire at the Riverside Apartments, St. George, Utah, Aug. 8, 2013 | Photo by and courtesy of Bryn M. Parastino, St. George News
Attentive neighbors alerted 911, St. George Fire Department responded to a dryer on fire at the Riverside Apartments, St. George, Utah, Aug. 8, 2013 | Photo by and courtesy of Bryn M. Parastino, St. George News
Attentive neighbors alerted 911, St. George Fire Department responded to a dryer on fire at the Riverside Apartments, St. George, Utah, Aug. 8, 2013 | Photo by and courtesy of Bryn M. Parastino, St. George News
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Facts about home clothes dryer fires (US Reported)
2,900 home clothes dryer fires are reported each year and cause an estimated 5 deaths, 100 injuries, and $35 million in property loss.
The leading cause of home clothes dryer fires is failure to clean them (34 percent).
More home clothes dryer fires occur in the fall and winter months, peaking in January.