Flaming Mouse story... FALSE...

[sconfire]

Flaming Mouse story ends up being false

WCAU-TV
A small-town rumor that sparked world wide interest in a mouse burning down a house has been found to be untrue. Slideshow: Mouse Story Proves To Be Tall Tale

After 81-year-old Chano Mares's house burned down Saturday in Fort Sumner, news services picked up the quirky story.

"Flaming Mouse Burns Down House" read the headline over an Associated Press story that appeared on worldwide.

According to the initial report, Mares threw the critter in a pile of burning leaves near his home, but it ran back to the house on fire.

A local firefighter said the mouse ran to just beneath a window and the flames spread up the window and throughout the house.

All contents of the home were destroyed, but no one was injured.

Interest in fires has been high lately. Unseasonably dry and windy conditions have charred more than 53,000 acres and destroyed 10 homes in southeastern New Mexico in recent weeks.

The mouse story, however, has been doused by Mares.

"It's really humorous more than anything that a mouse burned down the house," he told KOAT-TV in Albuquerque. The mouse was dead when it hit the burning leaves.

Mares said he trapped and killed the critter and tossed it on the fire.

The flames, he said, probably reached his house because they were driven by high winds.

Capt. Jim Lyssy of the Fort Sumner Fire Department said the rumor probably got started because there was "a little too much excitement" at the time of the fire.

Mares lost everything -- and has no insurance -- but the mouse story still makes him smile.

"I started laughing, and I'll be laughing from now on," he said. "It's silly."

[webteam]

http://cms.firehouse.com/content/art...Id=46&id=46825

Latest update is...well..still...funny

WebTeam

[SSTONER]

Sooo...This is one for Education and Prevention I guess...dont throw a mouse in to a fire.

[pfd4life]

Sooo...This is one for Education and Prevention I guess...dont throw a mouse in to a fire.

HAHA Backdraft rides again....

Mice with matches...

[KEEPBACK200FEET]

It's not true? Dang, I can't nominate this guy for the Darwin Awards anymore

[SSTONER]

It's not true? Dang, I can't nominate this guy for the Darwin Awards anymore

maybe you still can! The FD says thats the way its goin in the report.

With no further investigation planned, Chavez said his department's report of the fire will reflect that the burning critter ran back to the house.

Nominate away!

[Fawlty]

Actually, as quirky as the original story is, I bet it's more likely the true one. My gut feeling is, is that he's feeling some heat over throwing live mice in fires and decided to downplay that whole deal.

My only experience that would say it's certainly plausible, is that while conducting training fires in old derelict aircraft fuselages using plenty of Avtur / Avtag, a rabbit that must have been hiding in one of them came bolting out, 'Hare' ablaze as it were , and ran into a nearby field, starting a shortlived but memorable grass fire.

Just my tuppence!

[GeorgeWendtCFI]

Random thoughts:

1. You have to be dead to win a Darwin Award.

2. If the "victim" didn't tell the FD about the mouse, how in the hell would they have known about it?

3. If the FI hadn't ruled that the fire was caused by the "mouse", how would the press have known about it?

4. What person in their right mind gives a rats butt if someone kills a mouse?

5. The "victim" most likely lied to the investigators. There is no other explanation.

6. The FI task now should be to find out why he lied.

[REVANANT]

The later story mentioned that the mouse was stuck to a glue trap. Could the glue possibly be flammable ? would that lead to an earlier demise of the rodent, or would it add a flammability factor to the fur when it did melt sufficently to allow the mouse to escape ?

[pvfire424]

You must aslo be injured in a way to remove yourself from the gene pool to even get an honorable mention. So no Darwin awards at all for this gentleman.

[NickSBFD6]

Sounds like a new Mythbusters episode......

[superchef]

This has to qualify as one of the funniest stories ever.

[Fawlty]

[QUOTE=GeorgeWendtCFI]Random thoughts:

4. What person in their right mind gives a rats butt if someone kills a mouse?

QUOTE]

While agreeing with all other 'random thoughts', I know that some people get upset at non-traditional methods for mouse disposal.

Trust me, I know that nature can be far more cruel than a mousetrap (who'd want to be mauled and played with by a moggy for example) - I was almost involved in fisticuffs with another crew member after catching a fire station mouse by dousing it with liquid halon. (BCF to us Brits or Halon 1211 to you yanks.. we used to have large 'K' style tanks at the station to recharge the BCF systems on the Crash Trucks, if you tilted the tank, you could fill a mug with the pre vaporized liquid.. due to the -4 degree C boiling point, if you threw the contents on someone, it would instantly frost / freeze where it struck.. cold, shocking and irritating to a fellow firefighter, deadly to a mouse.) Well, after killing said mouse with BCF, another crew member (a long standing anti fox hunt activist) became pretty enraged.. harsh words were had etc etc, usual pre fight banter, cooling off period, pint of beer, alls all right with the world.. but he was pretty ticked for a bit.

So very long story short, there are people, maybe not the ones you hang around with George, but still, there are people who would view throwing live mice on a fire to be cruel and unusual.. To be honest, these days (older and more empathetic towards all animals as I am now) so would I! Any story making the press like this one did will of course attract public opinion, and of course some criticism for Joan D'Arc'ing the critter problem.

[GeorgeWendtCFI]

First of all, I do not know what a moggy is, but I am fairly certain that I do not want to be mauled by one.

Second, I do not blame you for being mad at a FF killing a mouse with 1211. That stuff is expensive and is also banned in the US because it damages the ozone layer. It would have been easier, cheaper and more environmentally sensitive to stomp the little bugger to death.

[Fawlty]

moggy = cat

[S8ER95Z]

the guy who earned a darwin award was the dude who rigged his house with gas bombs and his guillotine (that failed) because of flawed designs. He definately earned one.

[sconfire]

6. The FI task now should be to find out why he lied.

Good point

[gordoffemt]

Whether or not the mouse actually started the house fire or not seems to me silly. The bigger question to me is, why was this goofball burning leaves near his home with the fire conditions as high as they were? Don't communities usually have no-burn ordinances that are in place during these dangerous conditions?

Just a thought.

[SSTONER]

It would have been easier, cheaper and more environmentally sensitive to stomp the little bugger to death.

Oh God - I hope PETA isnt lurking in here!

[GeorgeWendtCFI]

Oh God - I hope PETA isnt lurking in here!

That's a difference between you and me...

I hope they ARE!