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Fire and smoke damage from a blaze believed to have been caused by a mirror and reflected sunlight. Dorset Fire and Rescue Service

Mirror + direct sunlight = house fires, warns fire service

Dorset firefighters say they tackled a bedroom fire on Monday believed to have been sparked by mirror-reflected sunlight.

WHEN YOU THINK OF household items which pose a fire risk in your home, mirrors might not come immediately to mind, but British firefighters have issued a warning over the danger of mirrors starting fires by reflecting bright, direct sunlight onto nearby objects.

Dorset Fire and Rescue Services station manager says that two crews equipped with breathing apparatus tackled a serious fire at lunchtime on Monday which they believed was caused “by sunlight reflected off a mirror on the window sill”.

The fire started in a first-floor bedroom, where a chair and a pair of curtains caught fire. It was contained in the bedroom by the fire services, though the room sustained serious smoke damage.

The fire service says that the incident should act as a warning to all homeowners about the risk of mirrors reflecting direct sunlight sparking house fires. “Although fires started in this way are unusual, they can occur,” says Arundel.

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7 Comments
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    Mute icaniwont
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    Dec 1st 2022, 12:13 PM

    Why was my comment deleted Journal.ie?

    The Ukraine has one of the highest rates of HIV and drug resistant TB in the world.

    https://www.unaids.org/en/resources/presscentre/featurestories/2022/march/20220309_michel-kazatchkine

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    Mute Míchael Búrké
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    Dec 1st 2022, 12:52 PM

    @icaniwont: yeahhhhh!!! Let’s not help people if they’re sick.

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    Mute B Collins
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    Dec 1st 2022, 1:07 PM

    @icaniwont: it’s just Ukraine, not The Ukraine. Just FYI.

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    Mute Jensen Bhroin
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    Dec 1st 2022, 10:48 AM

    @Nomad: that is recognised as a human rights violation by the UN. You neglect to mention that having HIV is commonly used to deny residency rights, work permits and travel visas. It is a discriminatory practice that does little to prevent transmission but contributed massively to discrimination and stigma.

    The best way to prevent transmission is to ensure that people get tested and are diagnosed and receive access to treatment to prevent onwards transmission. The best way to make this happen is to destigmatise the process and provide adequate access to treatment which represses viral load and prevents transmission. The worst way to do that is to continue perpetrate or replicate stigmatising practices. That is what all the best practice evidence shows and you will see that the countries that have such regulations don’t have have great detection rates and do not have lower transmission rates, they just discriminate unfairly against people because they have HIV which is not the end goal or desired result of any health policy.

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    Mute Tom Mullally
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    Dec 1st 2022, 11:53 AM

    The best way to prevent transmission is to be celebate. The second best way is to only have sex with one other who also only has sex with you.

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    Mute B Collins
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    Dec 1st 2022, 1:07 PM

    @Tom Mullally: Is that your approach Father Mullally?

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    Mute Gerard
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    Dec 1st 2022, 1:16 PM

    @Tom Mullally: Telling people to have less sex has never ever ever ever worked.

    You can tell god-fearing evangelicals they’ll go to hell for all eternity for pre-marital sex, and still end up with eye-watering teen pregnancy rates.

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    Mute Gerard
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    Dec 1st 2022, 1:06 PM

    The reason is obvious: access to services. It seems covid was the primary impetus to roll out the remote testing service, but even before the pandemic, it was incredibly difficult to get appointments even in Dublin (never mind outside Dublin). Many clinics didn’t even want to see you if you had no symptoms of anything, because they were so underresourced.

    Yet you get the same tired response: be absinent and you’ll be grand. Because asking people not to have sex has always worked out so well historically…

    PrEP is extremely effective in getting HIV transmission rates down, but it’s still only available in a limited number of venues with limited appointment availability.

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    Mute Joe_X
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    Dec 1st 2022, 12:26 PM

    Just a case of party mad and horniness after lockdowns.

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    Mute SquintEastwood
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    Dec 1st 2022, 12:19 PM

    @Jensen Bhroin: sounds very similar to covid cert that was welcomed

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    Mute Míchael Búrké
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    Dec 1st 2022, 12:49 PM

    @SquintEastwood: ahhhhh nice work there. And the level of intimacy required to transmit covid is just the same as with HIV?

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    Mute Conor Kirwan
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    Dec 1st 2022, 11:53 PM

    If we had meaningful access to PrEP rates would fall like a stone. 56 Dean St in London has done amazing work here. From a human perspective it’s just the right thing to do and being cold-hearted, a lifetime of PrEP is less than 1% of the cost of HIV treatments and interventions.

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