Posted on 12/28/2011 1:07:48 PM PST by angcat
The fire appears to have been caused by hot fireplace ashes and embers, which had been discarded," said Barry Callahan, the chief fire marshal in Stamford, Connecticut.
He said the fire that engulfed the large waterfront Victorian home was accidental, according to preliminary findings, but an investigating is ongoing.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
He said the fire that engulfed the large waterfront Victorian home was accidental, according to preliminary findings, but an investigating is ongoing.
I screwed this post up. I did not see anything on FR about this.
So sad!
I think the Boyfriend is a Putz.
This is an awful story. People move to Connecticut because they think they will be “safe” - but they aren’t. Another horrible murder happened in Cheshire where a woman and her two daughters were raped and murdered by two miscreants who are now on death row. Tragedy happens everywhere.
Her contractor boyfriend made a boneheaded decision, and now 5 people are dead
Two people made tragic mistakes, now the woman has to try and live with this the rest of her life
This is such an awful story
Almost identical story of loss in Australia, except the father survived,so far
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2078785/Matt-Golinski-Celebrity-chef-fighting-life-house-killed-entire-family.html
why do you assume the boyfriend discarded the ashes improperly?
Good Lord another awful one.
I read he put them in a plastic bin or a paper bag. The story changed a few times.
>>People move to Connecticut because they think they will be “safe” - but they aren’t.
So house fires only happen in CT, is that the point of your post?
embers will do that... all...make sure it is out...
NO: the point of my Post is that they were living in East Village, for Christ sake, and were safer there than in ritzy Connecticut! Get a grip and read. The girls were also closer to their father in NYC. All that glitters is not gold. Also, the terrible Skakel/Kennedy murder took place in Greenwich. Wealthy Ct is a hotbed of “upscale” crime.
Quote from contractor: “We will get through this.” With such horrible tragedies, I don’t think you get “through this”.
Because the boyfriend said he did. He put them in “a bag” and left them leaning against the wall of the house.
He was also the contractor who was renovating the building, which did not have an occupancy permit or working smoke detectors.
The contractor/ family friend/ boyfriend is going to jail for a long time. He will not be “getting through this”.
Gross negligence with the ashes, no CO, no fire detectors, knowledge of the home’s balloon construction, five people dead yet he’s still alive... see ya.
What is “balloon construction” in a building?
I think there probably will be some negligence charges against him...if nothing else, his business is dead. He had built/renovated the homes of many well-known and wealthy NYers, such as Donna Karan, for example.
This was a terrible thing, and anything that could have gone wrong, did go wrong. The boyfriend said he had two of the girls by the hand and was getting them out when they slipped away from him (he has burns, so probably there was a blast of heat and he let go) and ran back up the stairs. I suspect it was because they heard their grandparents calling and looking for them, since the grandparents had been sleeping on the second floor and the kids had been on the third floor, and the grandparents didn’t know the kids had gotten downstairs and were looking for them. One of the little girls was found with her grandmother, between the first and second floors, and another was found on the second floor, while the one of them was found next to a window on a pile of books that her grandfather had set up to help her get out. He had gone out the window first on to a second story roof so he could help her out, but he died before he could get her.
A horrible, tragic story - and a reminder to go check your smoke detectors right now.
They were not his children or his parents. He may "get through this," but I pity that poor woman.
Balloon framing allows for fire to much more rapidly through a house.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_(construction)#Balloon_framing
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