A Lakewood resident this evening is lucky to have his home intact.
A short time after lighting the Menorah, the homeowner went to Daven Maariv and returned home to find flames shooting from the Menorah table.
The homeowner tells TLS he grabbed water in an attempt to extinguish the flames, but they kept going. He instead grabbed pillows to choke the flames.
It turns out, the metal Menorah was placed on aluminum foil, which became heated and ignited the plastic table cloth on the plastic table. The table continued burning, dripping to the floor and burning part of the floor.
“The moral of the story? Never leave candles unattended and be extra careful about putting disposable Menorahs on Rubbermaid tables – even if there’s foil,” the homeowner said.
Cool!
I hope he was smart enough to call the fire dept. but being there was no mention of it I bet it’s safe to assume he didn’t!
Ok seriously,
More incredible then the story itself is the moral that was summarized.
I would say, don’t act drunk and use pillows to extinguish a flame.
Like whaaat ??!
Umm ever heard of the new invention called aluminum foil
Every year we hear such stories.
plastic tablecloth seems to have been the issue
I am actually impressed that he thought of using pillows to smother the fire. Many people would panic and run for water while losing valuable time. I once obserrved a festive candle at a bar-mitzvah fall and ignite the tablecloth.While everyone yelled get water, a waiter calmly doused the flames with a bottle of soda…
How about: “Unattended Menorah Ignites Plastic Table, Fire Spreads to Floor Nearly Burning House Down”
A good idea if you use plastic tables and the low menorah
take 2 cans of canned food like corn or beans.
wrap in foil
place menorah on top of the cans so the heat is away from the table.
Many of these metal Menorahs are not designed for candles (although this particular one was).
Ever heard of something called a fire extinguisher they work a lot better then water at putting out fires.
I still have not seen a suggestion about what to light on. Wooden and plastic tables are flammable. Some people happen to have glass tables but they are a separate safety issue.
I think the moral is don’t have plastic tablecloth anywhere near where you light menorah. Seems a bit like common sense.
As we get closer to the end of chanuka and more candles are lit each night, those disposable menorahs cannot handle all that heat. I find that the wax ends up forming a puddle and it can easily ignite. I’ve personally witnessed that happen a number of years back and have not used that type of menorah since. I also make sure to keep a constant watch on the lit menorahs because one can never be too cautious!
Avi, read the article. It seems he did use foil.
I am finding it very hard to believe there was silver foil as I don’t see one trace of it in the pictures. Our table is completely wrapped in silver-foil and we would never have anything plastic anywhere near the menorah. That the blue plastic tablecloth was nearby is a problem. . .
Silver foil is not enough to protect from the heat if the candles melt down in these tin menorahs. The table melts from the heat, which goes right through the foil. The fold will drop through the hole created by the heat along with the rest of the menorah, candles and fire. Instead we turn heavy baking pans upside down (real heavy ones, not disposable aluminum). These handle the heat better if it gets to that point, and it keeps the heat away from the table due to the height. (They are also much sturdier than the aforementioned cans of beans.)