By Bill Gustin
Firefighters responded to a fire in an old stucco and wood-frame house. On arrival, they found smoke pushing from window frames and roof soffit vents on the B side (side 2) of the house. On entering, they found no contents burning; the only sign of fire was smoke pushing from the baseboard and from around window frames on the B-side wall.
Since there was no external source of ignition, firefighters were confident that the fire must have been started by faulty electric wiring inside the wall, which is not unusual for older homes in this neighborhood. Firefighters cut the power at the circuit breaker panel and, with a charged hoseline ready, opened the wall. To their dismay, there was no electrical wiring anywhere near the area of the most intense burning, which, in their experience, was the point of origin. “There has to be wiring in this wall!” said the ladder company captain, who was determined to find it. The captain suspected that faulty wiring started the fire by energizing the wire lath for the wall’s exterior stucco. He had seen it before: The lath heats the wood studs it is nailed to and, over time, brings them to the point of ignition.
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