So fear not, good citizens, there won’t be a run on iPhones and iPods because of yesterday’s Apple fire. Now that the dust has settled, here’s what we know about yesterday’s blaze:
- It began late Tuesday night around 10 pm local time at 20705 Valley Green Drive, a building that mainly contains IT workers, servers, and possibly parts of finance and HR.
- The fire, which caused no injuries, was limited to the roof and the attic.
- The fire was caused by construction work on a “rooftop air conditioning unit.” (How exactly an air conditioning unit, used to cool air, causes a fire, I have no idea.)
According to the SJ Mercurcy News: It took about 50 firefighters more than 3 1/2 hours to get the blaze under control. [Santa Clara County Fire Battalion Chief Kendall Pearson] said finding the fire in the attic spaces was difficult, even with the help of a thermal imaging camera.
“Our ability to get to the fire under the roof was problematic and it took some time,” Pearson said. “There was not a lot of active, visible fire. There was quite a bit of smoke for quite some time.”
- Daron Pisciotta, a fire captain with the Santa Clara County Fire Department, told Macworld yesterday that the cause of the fire is “looking accidental.”
So there you have it, folks. Run along now.
Anything with electricity and flammable materials can burn when it malfunctions, be it an A/C unit or a Macbook with a faulty LiOH battery.
Here's a theory: The part of an a/c that's outdoors or on a rooftop (the "condenser") gives off a lot of heat if it's working right. Air conditioners (and refrigerators) cool the air by absorbing its heat, then releasing that heat into the air outside. So I can imagine a situation where something readily flammable was left in the wrong place and perhaps covered with an insulant, and eventually got so hot that it started to burn.
Here's a theory:
....microsoft...
I still prefer the theory that someone left a MacBook Pro on the sofa.
"How exactly an air conditioning unit, used to cool air, causes a fire, I have no idea."
Oh god... I recently came here from TUAW because I thought the writing here would be better. Please slap yourself for that one and try not to do it again? Maybe I'm being harsh, but I just don't expect a blog like this to feel like a personal blog, where the author says everything that comes to mind. I don't expect it to be cold, hard journalism, either, but surely there is a balance somewhere?