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Blow-drying mattress leads to massive fire

Nicole Goebel
December 27, 2018

A teenager in southwestern Germany set a four-story house on fire when she decided to blow-dry her mattress to warm it up. More than a hundred firefighters were called to the scene.

https://p.dw.com/p/3Agkq
Firefighters in Freudenburg
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Steil TV

It's not the most efficient way to get warm on a cold winter's night nor was it the cleverest for a teenager in Freudenburg, near the German city of Trier.

The girl gave the residents of a four-story house a nasty Christmas surprise after snuggling up in bed after a night out — with a hair dryer to warm up the mattress.

All cozy, she fell asleep and set the bed on fire.

Luckily, she woke up and doused the flames with water after her father helped her drag the mattress onto the balcony.

Lulled into a false sense of security, the two went back to bed. The mattress, however, caught alight again, and the fire spread to the outer walls and all the way to the roof.

Read more: Germany: 10-year-old blows up school toilet with illegal firecracker

A passer-by, who happened to be a firefighter, spotted the blaze and alerted the fire brigade. It took more than a hundred firefighters several hours to put out the fire.

The fire caused €200,000 ($228,000) worth of damage to the house. No one appeared to have been seriously hurt.

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