{"id":2453951,"date":"2020-01-30T20:48:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-31T03:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/probable-cause-released-for-sinclair-road-fire-in-snowmass\/"},"modified":"2020-01-30T20:48:00","modified_gmt":"2020-01-31T03:48:00","slug":"probable-cause-released-for-sinclair-road-fire-in-snowmass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/probable-cause-released-for-sinclair-road-fire-in-snowmass\/","title":{"rendered":"Probable cause released for Sinclair Road fire in Snowmass"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
An image of the charred chimney chase in the Sinclair Road home.<\/strong>
Courtesy photo\/Roaring Fork Fire<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Roaring Fork Fire Rescue Authority officials disclosed the probable cause of the fire that significantly damaged a Sinclair Road home last week.<\/p>\n

On Jan. 27, Fire Marshal John Mele said the house fire \u2014 which reportedly forced four people to evacuate and caused significant damage to the second floor Jan. 20<\/a> \u2014 was most likely the result of pyrolysis of the home\u2019s wooden chimney chase.<\/p>\n

According to Mele, pyrolysis is when high heat conditions within a low-oxygen environment cause organic materials, like wood, to decompose over time.<\/p>\n

The Sinclair Road home was built and completed in 1979, Mele explained, and had a non-fire proofed wooden chimney chase, which is what encloses a fireplace\u2019s flue and is encapsulated with fireproof material in newer homes.<\/p>\n

Mele said in the Sinclair Home case, he believes the exposed, wooden chimney chase was charred and decomposed by the continued use of the fireplace over time through pyrolysis, and eventually caught fire Jan. 20.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis (pyrolysis) could have started a long time ago, but the chase finally decomposed enough and lowered the ignition temperature of the wood enough to produce fire,\u201d Mele said, noting he\u2019s seen pyrolysis play out in Snowmass Village homes before.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fireplace was not misused and the firebox was in good shape, so that\u2019s why we believe pyrolysis was the probable cause of this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mele went on to say that the reason this is the \u201cprobable\u201d cause is because he and Roaring Fork Fire Rescue officials want to wait until they are able to fully deconstruct the Sinclair Road home\u2019s chimney before they draw any definitive conclusions as to why it caught fire.<\/p>\n

But as a result of the probable cause finding, Mele urged locals with both older and newer homes to ask their chimney sweeps to inspect the chase the next time their home\u2019s chimney is cleaned.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven in more modern homes, have the chimney sweep inspect the interior chases,\u201d Mele said. \u201cLuckily in this situation the firefighters made a tremendous save. They saved the entire house from being destroyed.\u201d<\/p>\n

mvincent@aspentimes.com<\/a> This story was originally published in the Jan. 29 edition of the Snowmass Sun. The weekly newspaper hits newsstands every Wednesday and can be found online at SnowmassSun.com.<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An image of the charred chimney chase in the Sinclair Road home.Courtesy photo\/Roaring Fork Fire Roaring Fork Fire Rescue Authority officials disclosed the probable cause of the fire that significantly damaged a Sinclair Road home last week. On Jan. 27, Fire Marshal John Mele said the house fire \u2014 which reportedly forced four people to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2453951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-18 18:08:49","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2453951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2453951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2453951\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2453951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2453951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2453951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}