Official: Refrigerator potential source of deadly fire

Published 9:16 am Wednesday, December 7, 2016

OAKLAND, Calif. —Investigators honed in on a refrigerator and other electrical appliances as possible causes of the fire at a warehouse in Oakland that killed 36 people, as crews were set to finish their search for bodies.

The death toll in the most lethal building fire in the U.S. in more than a decade was not expected to go higher.

A refrigerator was a potential source of the fire, but it was too soon to say for sure, said Jill Snyder, special agent in charge of the San Francisco office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

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Snyder said investigators were looking at “anything electrical” on the first floor of the warehouse near the origin of the blaze.

“We have no indication that this was intentionally set,” she said.