Giancarlo was just trying to help. But he set the dog on fire, the dog set the couch on fire, the couch set the curtains on fire, and before long, residents of a five-story, 114-unit apartment building in San Francisco were fleeing for their lives down a fire escape amid a blaze that sent two people to the hospital.
That’s according to a fire department report filed as an exhibit in a wrongful-eviction lawsuit against the building’s owners.
“He tried to remove the ticks using a lighter, which accidentally lit the puppy on fire,” the report said.
The lawsuit was filed May 14 in San Francisco Superior Court by a couple who claim the building’s owners delayed work to repair their apartment after the fire, forcing them to live in a home-made trailer on streets around the Bay Area. It seeks unspecified damages.
A second-floor tenant told fire investigators she had adopted a puppy in Modesto, and after she brought it home, noticed it had a tick. The woman, whose name is redacted from the fire department’s report, said her friend Giancarlo decided to use a lighter to remove the blood-sucking parasite. It was just before midnight on March 12 last year.
Giancarlo — who is not identified by a last name in the report — told investigators he found many ticks on the dog’s stomach, and that he had experience using heat to get rid of ticks.
The dog, which Giancarlo said combusted as if something flammable had been applied to it, ran over to the couch, where the tenant tried to grab it, the report said. Her clothing and the sofa both caught fire, and the sofa set the curtains ablaze, the report said.
The woman fled the apartment with her puppy in her arms, pulling fire alarms on her way out of the building through heavy smoke, the report said, citing video footage supplied by the manager at the Post Street building between upscale Nob Hill and the gritty Tenderloin neighborhood.
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The dog, whose age and breed were not disclosed in the report, received burns to its ears, chest and neck, the tenant told investigators. The animal survived after emergency surgery and amputation of both ears, the report said.
The American Veterinary Medical Association warns that using heat to try to remove a tick from a pet can cause the parasite to inject saliva into the animal, boosting the chance of transmitting a tick-borne disease. Instead, tweezers should be deployed, to grip the tick as closely as possible to the pet’s skin.
“Then, gently and steadily pull the tick free without twisting or crushing it,” the association said in an advisory. “Once the tick is free, crush it while avoiding contact with tick fluids that can carry disease.”
At the time of the fire, the apartment building was 90% occupied, according to the report. The two people taken to hospitals had minor injuries, the report said. The blaze spread up into the unit above the apartment where it started, and caused a total of about $300,000 in damage, with another $100,000 in lost property, the report said.
Fire officials deemed the blaze accidental, and no arrests were made, the report said.