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Dell Laptop Blamed for House Fire

By Joseph S. Enoch
ConsumerAffairs.com

August 22, 2006

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A man in South Venice, Fla. believes his Dell laptop is the cause of his house burning down.

Louis Minnear told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune that about 5 a.m. Thursday he smelled what he believed to be an electrical fire. He searched the house for the source, didn't find it and went back to sleep. About 45 minutes later he awoke to find his couch engulfed in flames.

Minnear led his pregnant wife, 9-month-old son and two dogs to safety while scrambling for what belongings he could.

"It moved fast; it burned hot," Minnear told the Herald-Tribune. "But they got it out quickly."

In the end, all he could salvage were a few family photos, toys and his wife's purse.

The Dell was a Latitude D500, equipped with one of the 4.1 million batteries Dell recalled two days before the fire.

Minnear is "convinced" the Dell, which he said was sitting on a pile of papers, started the blaze.

The flames took less than 20 minutes to tear through the small home, destroying everything and leaving it uninhabitable.

Sarasota fire officials have yet to determine a cause but did verify that a laptop was on the remains of a couch. The case currently rests in the hands of the Florida State Fire Marshal.

"Sometimes the fires are left undetermined," Sarasota Assistant Fire Chief Paul Dezzi said. "Sometimes you cannot figure out what would have caused it."

Dell and the office of the Florida state fire marshal did not return two phone calls for comment. Dell also did not return phone calls made by the Herald-Tribune.

Should the fire marshal determine that the laptop was the cause of the fire, this would be the most destruction any Dell laptop has caused. In the first publicized case, in June, only the Dell laptop was destroyed. Then a month later, a Dell laptop in an office in Illinois charred itself and the desk it was sitting on.

Then, later in July, a truck in Nevada went up in flames sending two men fleeing as the flames reached the gas tank and two boxes of bullets in the glove box.

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