Playful Kittens Start House Fire

Two cats playing on a back porch apparently started a fire that killed them, a dog and destroyed a home, Bellingham Fire Department investigators said.

“If someone were to explain this to me, I wouldn’t have believed it,” said Fire Marshal Rob Neale. “It’s just classic.”

Working backward from a few clues, investigators pieced together what happened Monday night.

The playing cats must have knocked over a gasoline-powered weed trimmer, spilling gasoline onto the porch carpet. The fumes were ignited by the pilot light of a nearby water heater, Neale said.

What firefighters found was one cat in front of the water heater on the back porch, and a second cat behind the heater. The second cat had crawled in and had become stuck between the hot and cold-water hoses of a washing machine with his head wedged behind the water heater.

Homeowners John Crapo and Bonnie Johnson discovered the fire after hearing a “grappling” or “wrestling” noise from the porch. They escaped with one dog. Damage was estimated at $160,000.