Local News in Brief : Anaheim : $160,000 Blaze Is Attributed to Plumber
Fire investigators said Tuesday that a blaze in an apartment house was started Monday evening when a plumber using a blowtorch on bathroom pipes downstairs accidentally set the wall on fire.
The plumber was sweat-fitting pipe--using a blow torch to heat pipe so that it could be fitted together--”and he caught the wall on fire,” said Steve Magliocco, a division chief for the Anaheim Fire Department. The fire raced up and burned through the roof of the two-story building, he said.
The fire displaced seven families in the building in the 1700 block of West Juno Avenue, Magliocco said. The top three apartment units were damaged by the flames and the bottom four were uninhabitable because the utilities were cut off, he said. The Orange County chapter of the American Red Cross found lodging for the residents.
The fire caused $150,000 damage to the structure and $10,000 to the contents, he said. Twenty-two firefighters battled the blaze for 20 minutes.
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