14 Hours at a House Fire

I have written in general terms about the way clutter can be a fire risk, but here is a true-life story from today’s news that shows the inconvenience of clutter in a form most people wouldn’t think of.

From a Telegraph & Argus story:

Firefighters spent almost 14 hours at the scene of a house blaze because there was so much clutter in the property they could not tell if anyone was trapped inside.

As it turned out, there were no people in the house, but it took firefighters from 9 p.m., when they arrived at the scene, until 11 a.m. to find out for sure. That’s because the house was jammed full of so much stuff, especially piles of furniture, that it was impossible to tell whether someone might be trapped in one of the rooms. They had to actually dig through the clutter to make sure, and that took hours.