Skunk Smoke Bomb Causes Silvis House Fire

The cause of a house fire in Silvis last week even surprised the fire chief. This according to a report from our news share partner Local 4 and Ourquadcities.com.

The Silvis Fire Department received a call about a house fire at about five o'clock Friday evening and responded. When the fire department arrived at the home on 2nd Avenue flames were visible on the front porch and eventually spread up to the second floor of the home.

The cause? Silvis Fire Chief John John Winters tells Ourquadcities.com the cause was a commercial grade smoke bomb deployed under the porch by the homeowner to get rid of a skunk that had moved in.

When the smoke bomb was put under the porch and ignited it caught the porch on fire. Chief Winters told Ourquadcitites.com that after seeing that he'd recommend using a pest control professional to get rid of pests.

That may be the understated way to put it. I myself would be kind of paranoid about putting anything that was burning, smoldering, smoking under my porch to get rid of a pest. Mainly because I'd be afraid it would catch the porch on fire. I'd certainly at least want to be there keeping an eye on it to make sure it didn't do something just like that.

That said, I suspect the smoke bomb was probably stinky. And well... then there's the skunk too, so I can definitely understand why the homeowner may not have wanted to hang around and see what would happen with the skunk bomb.

The good news, the fire was put out in twenty minutes and the house wasn't a total loss. There's some clean up and there will probably be an insurance claim, but it could have been worse. Someday, the family will be able to laugh and talk about the time dad (or mom) set the house on fire trying to get rid of a skunk.