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Noticed reporters keep calling every house fire an 'electrical fire' without real proof
I worked in fire investigation for 12 years and maybe 3 out of 10 fires labeled electrical actually had a bad wire at the source, so how do you tell when a headline is jumping to conclusions about cause?
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quinnm7712d ago
Honestly though how often have we seen "cause unknown" turn into "possible electrical" just because the homeowners insurance won't pay out otherwise? Seems like a convenient catch-all to me.
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nathankim11d ago
Agree with you @quinnm77 but I see it a little differently. In my experience, insurance companies actually push back hard on electrical fires because they don't want to pay out on faulty wiring claims. I've seen adjusters demand thermal imaging reports and circuit breaker analysis before they approve a single dollar. The real problem is reporters just copy what the fire chief says in the initial press conference, and those guys are under pressure to give a cause fast even when they don't have one yet. A classic example is a kitchen fire that starts from a toaster left on. The fire marshal will call it "electrical origin" because technically the toaster's cord melted, but the real cause was someone leaving it plugged in overnight. So the label sticks even though the truth is more about human error.
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