Claim: A mouse set a house on fire after the homeowner threw the rodent into a pile of burning leaves.
Status: Undetermined.
Example: [Associated Press, 2006]
Mouse Thrown Into Fire Sets Home Ablaze A mouse got its revenge against a homeowner who tried to dispose of it in a pile of burning leaves. The blazing creature ran back to the man's house and set it on fire. Luciano Mares, 81, of Fort Sumner said he caught the mouse inside his house and wanted to get rid of it. "I had some leaves burning outside, so I threw it in the fire, and the mouse was on fire and ran back at the house," Mares said from a motel room Saturday. Village Fire Chief Juan Chavez said the burning mouse ran to just beneath a window, and the flames spread up from there and throughout the house. No was hurt inside, but the home and everything in it was destroyed. Unseasonably dry and windy conditions have charred more than 53,000 acres and destroyed "I've seen numerous house fires," village Fire Department |
Origins: Reminiscent of the "Jeep at Half the Price" legend came the
A few days later, however, the homeowner claimed the mouse was already dead when he threw it into the pile of burning leaves, and that the house fire was touched off by winds that blew embers from the burning leaf pile back towards the house:
The mouse story, however, has been doused by Mares. "It's really humorous more than anything that a mouse burned down the house," he told Mares said he trapped and killed the critter and tossed it on the fire. The flames, he said, probably reached his house because they were driven by high winds. Capt. Jim Lyssy of the Fort Sumner Fire Department said the rumor probably got started because there was "a little too much excitement" at the time of the fire.
A small-town rumor that sparked world-wide interest about a mouse burning down a house has been found to be untrue.
Then, the next day, he changed his story again and once more claimed the original version was true:
"That dang mouse crawled in there," Mares, who talks quickly and in slightly broken English, said in a phone interview from a motel in Fort Sumner, where he is staying with his nephew. "I have an awful hate for those critters.'' In the interview, Mares recounted three times the series of events. A smelly little mouse got caught in one of the glue traps he'd set in and around his home. He was pleased Mares went outside and threw the whole deal How did the mouse run away, still trapped in the glue? "The fire melted the glue and he got away," Mares said.
Mares and his nephew stood by his original version, in which he claimed the mouse scampered into his house and set it afire.
Perhaps the original version was true but
Either way, we look forward to the next installment of the saga.
Last updated: 10 January 2006
Sources: