The new owners of a Ewing Street home were preparing to move in when their vacuum cleaner caught on fire and the fire spread to the rest of the home yesterday afternoon.
The homeowners were doing some work in the home just after 3 p.m. when their son noticed that their vacuum cleaner was on fire, police said. The vacuum cleaner was outside and was on. The homeowners went outside and attempted to put out the fire with the garden hose, but by that time the house also had caught fire.
Firefighters from the area got the blaze under control just after 4 p.m. None of the occupants of the home were injured, but one fire fighter suffered from heat exhaustion and another received a knee injury fighting the blaze on an afternoon in which temperatures reached the high 90s.
The house, located on the 400 block of Ewing Street, sustained heavy damage, including a collapsed roof, and was declared uninhabitable by the local fire marshall. The cause of of the fire is being investigated by the Princeton Township Police Department and the Princeton Bureau of Fire Safety and Housing Inspection.
Firefighters from the Princeton Fire Department, Lawrence Township, Hopewell Township, Plainsboro, Montgomery Township, Robbinsville, and Princeton Plasma Physics fire departments were at the scene assisting.