Cellphone and polish remover spark fire

It was hardly a recipe for a Molotov cocktail, but a cell phone and a bottle of nail polish remover were responsible for starting a bedroom fire in Gisborne yesterday.

A teenage girl has been praised by fire fighters after doing every thing right when the fire started in her home in suburban Mangapapa just before 5pm.

The girl was in her room when she disconnected her cell phone from its charger and it sparked.

"The spark ignited the (nail polish remover) fluid and of course it went up pretty quickly," said a fire service spokesman.

"The bottle was open so the solvent vapours were in the air. Things got worse when the bottle tipped over onto the bed and the bed ignited."

The girl ran out of the room and closed the doors. She alerted her family, they called 111 and everyone went outside to wait for fire fighters.

"She did everything right. It was just one of those crazy, one-off things that can happen."

The fire service put out the fire before it got into the walls and damaged was limited to the bedroom, he said. It was mostly severe smoke damage.

"It was a good outcome considering everything, the family were lucky the fire didn't get into the walls and no one was injured."

- NZPA