Teen accidentally starts apartment fire while burning letters from her ex

A teenager started a fire in her home while burning letters from her ex.

According to a Facebook post written earlier this week by the Lincoln Police Department in Nebraska, police and fire officials responded to an apartment complex, where a fire was burning in a third-floor apartment.

A representative of the Lincoln Police Department tells Yahoo Lifestyle that the woman, whose age is listed on the incident report as 19, lit the letters on fire. However, they only smoldered, so, she abandoned them on the carpet, then went to take a nap.

“The woman assumed that because the letters were only smoking, that they wouldn’t catch fire,” says the spokesperson. However, the teen awoke to the smell of smoke and the sound of the smoke detector.

The teen rushed to fill an empty milk container with water, says the spokesperson, and tried to extinguish the flames. She also opened the windows before leaving the apartment.

An incident report sent to Yahoo Lifestyle by the Lincoln Police Department states that the balcony to the apartment was burned. The overall damage is $4,000.

A ticket for deliberate or negligent burning, a city ordinance violation, was issued to the teen, who will appear in court in October.

Yahoo Lifestyle could not reach a representative for apartment rental agency Century Management, for comment.

“The woman told the officers that she didn’t mean for the fire to spread,” the police spokesperson tells Yahoo Lifestyle. “We wish she hadn’t done it.”

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