Insurance company: Flowers started Ark. house fire

[September 01, 2010]  LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) -- A fire that damaged an Arkansas home wasn't caused by an electrical problem, burning food or arson. Instead, an insurance investigator concluded, the dead plants did it.

A report summary given to homeowner Brian Duncan stated that the fire was "caused by self-heating through decomposition of organic materials" in a flowerpot.

Or, in layman's terms, the flowers spontaneously combusted.

Duncan's home is a few miles south of Paragould in northeast Arkansas.

He says his wife had planned on repotting the flowers that were on the porch, but she never got around to it and they eventually died.

No one was injured in the July 25 blaze, and a family member was able to put it out even before firefighters arrived.

[Associated Press; By TOM PARSONS]

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