Man Exterminates Spiders With Blow Torch, House Burns Down

By Petr Svab
October 18, 2017 Last Updated: November 29, 2017
The aftermath of a fire at mobile home fire on the 4000 block of East Blacklidge Drive, Tucson, Ariz. on Oct. 15, 2017. (Tucson Fire Department)

Update: Tucson Fire Department determined the blowtorch was not the cause of the fire. “That was incorrect information at the time, that fire was not caused by that,” a spokesperson for the department told The Epoch Times via Facebook.

A Tucson, Arizona, man picked up a blow torch and went on to eradicate a spider infestation under his mobile home. What could have gone wrong?

While the propane torch was more than capable of burning spider webs, the house itself wasn’t capable of withstanding the flame, a firefighter suspected.

On Monday, Oct. 16, at 9:19 p.m. local firefighters received a call saying the man’s house, on the 4000 block of East Blacklidge Drive, was on fire.

(Tucson Fire Department)

When the firefighters arrived, the man and his neighbors were carrying his elderly mother out of the house. She suffered minor injuries, Tucson.com reported.

The 4000 block of East Blacklidge Drive, Tucson, Ariz. (Screenshot via Google Maps)

The fire was extinguished in 11 minutes, but not before the fire ruined the home.

Last year a different Tucson man used a blow torch to clear weeds in his yard. Without him noticing, the fire spread from the weeds to his attic. He only started to smell smoke after an hour and then found flames coming from a wall near the ground where he burned the weeds, KVOA reported.

It took 23 minutes for the firefighters to put out the fire. All three residents of the house, in their 30s, were displaced.

A rather bizarre blowtorch accident happened in Michigan in 2012. A man wanted to eat a squirrel and used a blow torch to singe its fur while visiting his girlfriend at the Clearview Apartments complex in Holland Township. He forgot to turn the torch off, which in turn set fire to some plants, and subsequently caught the deck on fire.

(Petr Svab/The Epoch Times)

The fire spread to 32 units in the complex and the property’s insurance company, Travelers Indemnity Company, laid out more than $2 million in repairs at the time.

His girlfriend was found liable for the damages (based on her lease agreement) by the Michigan State Court of Appeals.