Crystal Ball Starts Fire at Oklahoma Home

Jan. 30, 2004  |  SHAWNEE, Okla. (AP) -- 

Firefighters in this central Oklahoma town peered into a crystal ball
and found the cause for a fire.

It didn't take long for Shawnee Fire Prevention Officer Jimmy Gibson
to figure out what caught a homeowner's sofa on fire and brought fire
crews to the rescue.

Once the couch was extinguished, Gibson reached into a hole burnt into
the sofa and found a glass gazing ball. Soon, sunlight shining through
the ball burned two holes in the leg of his pants.

Firefighters then placed the ball in the grass, and within 30 seconds
the ground was smoking.

"It has dynamic heat. We were caught off guard," Gibson said. "I
couldn't believe how quickly it burned."

Firefighters believe the ball was taken off a table, where it was
usually displayed, and placed on the couch by the homeowner's
grandchildren. The fire started two days later, when sunshine came
through a large set of windows and through the glass ball, igniting
the couch.

"It's not something you run across every day," Gibson said. "I'd never
seen it."

The fire set off a smoke detector, and the homeowner quickly called
the fire department. No one was injured in the fire, which was
confined to the sofa.

Gibson said he plans to keep the ball, which the homeowner gave him
after the fire a couple weeks ago, on his bookshelf as a conversation
piece.

He said the ball worked like a magnifying glass in sunlight, directing
light into a heat beam.

Even if the ball was placed on a flat, nonflammable surface, the heat
from sunlight could ignite a blaze on a rug or other items, Gibson
said, so homeowners should be careful where they place such items.