The Fire Marshall did his investigation and said that there was a 5 way plugged into this outlet with 5 commercial sized fans plugged into it. They had the fans in their crawl space because a pipe had burst and they were trying to dry it out. He did his calcultions and said that the fans were pulling almost 20 amps and that they had been running for almost 5 days straight 24/7. Thats what he concluded was the cause of the fire.
Some fire inspectors are sharp and some are not. Sometimes I wonder how many electrical fires are really electrical in nature. I'm sure he was right(about where the fire started not the cause) in this case but sometimes I think(almost know) they blame electrical if nothing else is found.
That is what I also believe and my bet is stab in. I see it all the time around here and in the year and a half I've been in this area I have pulled out at least 5 burned up receptacles due to stab ins not being secure.
The breaker was sized right for the wire, it was a 20A breaker. To make it more interesting it was a Cutler Hammer BR panel with a mix of BR breakers and T&B Breakers (Thomas & Betts). None of the breakers actually tripped. As far as the fans I am only saying what I was told and that was 5 fans plugged into one circiut that combined were drawing almost 20A. The people who had the fans plugged in were working for a company that cleaned up water damage, etc.
I say that it was the 5 way that started the fire . the 5 way heated up and it heat worked its way back to the receptical. Even if the 5 way was 12 ga it still would heat up over time.
The receptical dosn't look like it really was the problem ....just a symptom of the problem.
The only difference between a 15a recep and a 20a recep is the shape of the slots. A 15a recep is built with the same internal components as a 20a one, so you cannot overload a 15a recep more than a 20a version.
Here are the photos of an almost disaster. This is some mumbo jumbo the alarm system guys tried to install in a brand new 5 million dollar park ave renovation. The expander you see was tucked up in the hatch of an all millwork walk in closet under some ac units if not for the fact that we were testing the units with the havc guys the access panel would have been closed and no one would have noticed the 12 inch flames licking at the ac units until the closet started to burn. Luckily the ac guy let me know that there was something wrong (a whole nother story) and I was able to save the day with a fire extinguisher.
I looked at those pictures a good many times, and it's still a mystery to me. I can't really even think of a failure scenario that would cause anything like that, except maybe a lightning strike.
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