The Starkville Fire Department Wednesday ruled the Jan. 27 fire that demolished four Summer Chase apartments and displaced seven people was an accident.
SFD Marshal Mark McCurdy said a charcoal smoker, on the back porch of the unit inhabited by Patsy Slayton, caused the fire.
“She had been using it earlier in the day,” McCurdy said. “We’re not sure what part of the apartment caught fire first, but we know it originated from the smoker on the first floor of the northeast side of the building.”
McCurdy said Slayton, whose 7-year-old dog was rescued from the fire, will not face any criminal charges for failing to extinguish the fire in her smoker.
“It’s an accidental fire,” McCurdy said. “It wasn’t malicious.”
Only two of the seven residents in the unit were home during the fire, which broke out shortly after 1 p.m. The fire didn’t spread to any of the other three buildings on the property.
“(The fire) got in the attic, and once it got in there — the decking is made of particle board — it easily caught fire,” Stein McMullen, Starkville fire marshal, said at the scene. “From there, the heat and weight of the water made it collapse.”
McMullen said electrical engineers ruled out two initial possibilities — a freezer and a switch outlet — before determining the smoker was the source.
McCurdy encourages area residents to check smoke detectors on a monthly basis and make sure homes have working fire extinguishers.
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