Man Trying to Kill Huge Spider Sets Fire to His Home, Apartment Up in Flames
I am not a fan of spiders. If I see one, I kill it.
My wife will carefully scoop it up and release it back into nature. And my son, well, he has a whole set of imaginary spider friends: Rescue Spider, Danger Spider etc.
When you hear about that spider fossil that was discovered in China, with legs a meter long you wonder, ‘Maybe it’s OK to be afraid of spiders. Maybe it’s genetic.’
A man in Redding, California, understands that fear. Using a torch-style lighter, he attempted to set a spider on fire.
When the creature scurried onto a mattress, it set it ablaze, and eventually the whole unit.
Battalion Chief Rob Pitt said the damage was moderate. The cause, he stressed, was a man trying to burn a spider.
“It was a huge wolf spider,” said Lyndsey Wisegarver, who works as a caregiver to one of the residents in the home. Wolf spiders are known for their opportunistic hunting style, often chasing or pouncing on prey.
Wolf spiders are hairy and over an inch long. Everyone in this story, from human to spider, was right to be afraid.
They rarely use their venom on humans, but will if they feel threatened.
This spider in Redding was obviously threatened and retaliated by setting a mattress on fire.
Residents attempted to put the fire out themselves, resorting to a garden hose. Firefighters arrived shortly after and were able to put the fire in the bedroom out before it spread.
Fire fighters did find an extinguisher and hose in the bedroom. Wisegarver and the two other men living in the apartment all escaped unharmed.
Wisegarver stated they had been thinking for awhile of moving out. “We will make it work,” she said.
The unit has been deemed uninhabitable and they will have to find another place to live. The unit sustained $11,000 in damage.
The fire department is still investigating and it is unsure if the man will face charges. The lesson here is to ‘scoop and release’ spiders back to the wild.
The Redding fire department advised that people not use fire to exterminate spiders in the future.
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