The Associated Press
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Hours before a fire killed 10 at a group home for the mentally ill and disabled, a maintenance man shorted the electrical wiring running through the attic where investigators believe the fire started, according to documents released Tuesday.
The investigation report by the state fire marshal’s office did not specify a cause of the Nov. 27 fire that also injured dozens, but it listed an electrical short or overload in the attic as a possible cause.
The report was released to The Associated Press under a state open-records law request. The report labels the investigation as non-criminal.
Documents show the maintenance man told a fire marshal’s investigator he had used pliers to stick a wire into an open outlet in the furnace room in order to trip the breaker while he worked on the furnace.
Deputy state fire marshal Bill Zieres told the AP on Tuesday the short-circuit would cause an unusual amount of heat to move through the wires, which in this case ran through the attic.
Earlier this month, documents obtained by The Associated Press indicated that several months before the fire, state regulators had sought to take away the home operator’s license because of concerns that it had failed to pay taxes and faced potential financial insolvency.