Aaron Vehling

On a quick stop at home in between meetings Tuesday night, Justine Majeres noticed smoke in her duplex house at 233 Hudson St.

She followed the smoke to her bathroom where she saw flames coming out of the wall.

“There was smoke everywhere,” Majeres, a sophomore, said.

When the Eau Claire Fire Department arrived, officials found smoke in both sides of the duplex and a torpedo heater, which was being used to thaw pipes, according to the incident report. The heater was in the other side of the duplex, which is vacant. The heater started the wall on fire, the report stated.

Majeres said she came home around 5:55 p.m. and used a fire extinguisher that she had received free from a bank to contain the fire until three fire trucks arrived. There was not a fire extinguisher provided with the house, Majeres said.

The owner of the duplex, Tom Kite who owns 10 homes in Eau Claire, told fire officials the heater had been on for about 30 minutes before fire fighters arrived at the house.

Shortly after Kite had turned on the heater, something plastic in the bathroom started to melt, so he placed the heater further away, he told officials.

However, the heater was not pulled far enough from the wall, Fire Inspector Jim Onarheim said.

“The heater was way too close to combustibles,” he said.

A plastic gas can filled with about four gallons of kerosene was found within two feet of the heater as well, Onarheim said. The fire did not reach the kerosene, but it would have fueled the fire had the fire increased, he said.

Majeres and her roommate Kally Worm, a sophomore, are lucky Majeres came home when she did.

“Within another 15 minutes we would have had a real good, working fire,” Onarheim said.

Majeres and Worm said they had not planned on returning home until 9 p.m.

The heat had been kept off in the vacant side of the duplex, which Kite said caused the pipes to freeze. This is the second time the pipes froze at the house, he said.

It is very dangerous to use a heater to thaw pipes, Onarheim said. He suggested calling a professional to steam the pipes.

Officials estimated the fire damage at $1,000, the incident report stated. Kite estimated the damage at $300.

The original estimate is way off and the bathroom still is useable, Kite said. The faucet fixture was fixed Wednesday morning and a new shower will be installed Saturday, he said.

Fire damaged many of the tenants’ toiletry items, including shampoo and soap.

Although Worm and Majeres said the fire could have been a lot worse, they still are upset over the inconvenience.

Worm said she hasn’t been able to take a shower in her house for the past two days, and Tuesday night they stayed at a friend’s house because the smell of smoke was so strong.

Frozen pipes and now a hole in their bathroom wall are not the only problems Worm and Majeres have encountered at 233 Hudson St.

When the tenants returned from winter break, their front door was wide open. The lock did not work properly and the door had blown open, they said. From Jan. 1-19 the house had been open, causing the temperature to drop to about 17 degrees and the water in the toilet bowl was partially frozen.

The girls are looking for a new place to live because they said the house is not fit to live in.

“(We moved in) just this (school) year,” Majeres said, “and we are moving out as soon as possible.”