Lucky escape for family as globe base catches fire

Todd Sutherland spotted the burning threat on the window sill. Photo / Otago Daily Times

Their close-call is a warning all families should heed, a Dunedin family says, after a children's globe sitting on a window sill caught fire.

Five-year-old Todd Sutherland ran straight to his mother Maree Turnbull to tell her the plastic stand underneath a glass globe was on fire after sunlight shining through the globe sparked a flame.

The room was flooded by afternoon spring rays shining directly through a window.

"He said, 'there's smoke, and there's even a flame, Mummy' and I basically ran in one movement, blew it out and threw it out the door."

No one was hurt in the fire but it could easily have been much worse, Ms Turnbull said.

The globe was sitting on a window sill about 25cm from her 3-year-old daughter Maddison's head and only centimetres from a curtain when the globe's stand started smoking.

When the Otago Daily Times visited the family's Wakari home with a fire safety officer, the globe's base started smoking in the spot where the magnified sunlight hit it less than two seconds after it was placed on the sunny window sill.

"What if we'd been out, in another room or away for the weekend, or my daughter was having her afternoon nap in there, it could have been much, much worse," Ms Turnbull said.

She had been in a house fire before and the globe incident had given her "a hell of a fright", Ms Turnbull said.

Fire safety officer Barry Gibson said the Dunedin fire service was advised of about three or four fires started from magnified sunlight each year, but there were likely to be many more that were not reported.

"You shouldn't underestimate the power of the sun and I strongly advise people not to put anything reflective in its way that can magnify the intensity of sunlight."

- OTAGO DAILY TIMES