The winter sun caused another fire on Monday when a concave mirror focussed sunlight onto a shirt that was draped over a chair in East Dulwich.
Firefighters have reiterated their warning about the dangers of fires caused by direct sunlight. The new sunlight blaze is the third in a week but thankfully it only caused a small amount of damage to the house on Peckham Rye at around 2pm.
The Nutella jar fire incident - which has received worldwide coverage - and a small fire in the Mayfair home of lingerie tycoon Michelle Mone, were the other two. Mone told her 889,000 Twitter followers, sunlight had refracted off of a mirror onto a bean bag. She put the fire out herself and the Brigade didn’t attend.
In the last five years we've seen 125 fires caused by the sun's rays. These incidents don't only happen in the summer and our stats show that seven fires have been caused that way in this winter alone.
Charlie Pugsley from the Brigade's fire investigation unit said:
"These sort of fires are not as rare as you would think. I’ve seen everything from sparkly door knobs to crystal balls starting fires.
"Crystal and glass ornaments and items such as mirror tables should be kept out of direct sunlight. This shows these fires are not an urban myth. Also make sure that you have a working smoke alarm on every level of your home."
Last July fire crews dealt with a house fire in Clapham that was caused by the sun's rays refracting through a crystal door knob and onto a dressing gown hanging from the door which then caught fire. Fortunately, the house was empty at the time and a smoke alarm alerted builders working on an adjacent house who called us.