Neighbour's House Set on Fire

[Cymae]

Around 10.50pm last night, our neighbour's house was set on fire. Thankfully, the smoke was blowing away from our house (which stands a little under 2.5m away from the neighbour's), and neither our house or the neighbour on the other side of the burning house suffered any damages.

Not having yet found the news report, I deduce merely from my observation that an accelerant was used and the fire was deliberately lit. This is mostly due to the fact that the lawn was burning (despite there being dew on the grass), and the fire was raging both inside the house and on the lawn at the same time. I think perhaps they made some sort of molotov cocktail or similar and threw it at the window. In Australia, our windows usually stay open due to the heat, however we have fly screens on them. This would probably explain how the fire got inside the hosue and on the lawn at the same time.

The house burned so badly, that firefighters could not go in to check if anyone was still inside until after it was put out, at which point, they could not tell if someone was inside or not. They have not yet found her as far as I know, and despite her lack of popularity with her neighbours, I hope she was not at home.

when we evacuated our house, the fire was raging badly enough that it was hot to touch the stairway rail. It took firefighters over half an hour to put the fire out, though they started with the sides so the neighbouring houses wouldn't catch fire.

Today I plan to go buy another Terrabyte drive to back up all my important information from my computers and keep it at work. I have amassed over 6years worth of work and documents and art on my drives, and anything is replaceable except that.

Once it was safe to go back inside, I came out with my camera and took some pictures. I will take some daylight ones today and post them so you can better see the extent of the damage. Sorry, no burning photos, as It was unsafe to stay inside our house, and I didn't think it was prudent to risk my safety for a camera:


Front of the House after the fire was put out (you can se a charred semi-circle of lawn):

The fire crew:

The back of the house: No damage, but you can see the fire's come out the windows.

[FuzzyPlushroom]

Oh, damn! I hope she got out of it okay - and I'm glad to hear that your house wasn't damaged (melted siding, maybe?)

Someone (they did catch him) burned down the apartment house a few houses away from me last year... that was hot enough that part of the roof collapsed; I believe five towns' fire crews were called in, and they were fortunately able to save all the surrounding buildings from damage (aside from warped siding due to the heat).

[Killa_Ape]

Wow, glad to hear you and your house are fine, sucks for the neighbors though

Some of the houses they build so close here they would have lost 3-5 by the time fire crews came, good thing yours isn't as close!

[Cymae]

The neighbour is one single woman aged in her late twenties? I think she was living in community housing (paid by the government). She made a nuisance of herself in the neighbourhood, and the police would show up weekly at her house, BUT, I still hope she's ok. She will have to move though.

[Cymae]

Excuse the double post, but I got a call to say our neighbour was visiting today. She's fine, and wasn't in the house last night.

I found a news article:
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/s...3-3102,00.html

And the police press release:
http://www.police.qld.gov.au/News+an...8/10/23mru.htm

[crenn]

Well, that would have been fun.

[simon275]

Wow that is crazy. Sounds like she was pretty shady if someone set her house on fire.

[nevermind1534]

Or, at least there was somebody who hated her enough.

[mittelmeier]

That's crazy. A kid I went to high school with burnt down a judges house once for sentencing his uncle to some jail time. Kinda looks like the same thing, he throw a bottle of lit gas through an open window.