A Californian man tried to kill a spider using a torch lighter on Sunday, Jan. 7, but his attempts did not go as planned.
Instead of burning the large wolf spider, he ended up burning the apartment.
Lyndsey Wisegarver told AJC.com, one of the residents was trying to kill the spider in an upstairs bedroom.
“It was a huge wolf spider,” said Wisegarver, who is a caregiver for one of the residents.
After setting the arachnid ablaze, it scampered onto a nearby mattress causing it to catch on fire. Although they managed to extinguish the fire on the mattress, it had already spread to a flag collection and drapes in the bedroom, reported the news website.
The residents then tried to put out the fire with a garden hose but were unable to. Firefighters were called and managed to extinguish the fire within 20 minutes.
Apart from the wolf spider, all residents were able to escape the building without any injuries.
Battalion Chief Rob Pitt said the fire ended up causing about $11,000 in damage and rendering the apartment uninhabitable. The residents will now have to find another place to live.
Wisegarver said they were thinking about moving for some time now and the spider incident sped up that process.
“We’ll make it work,” she told the news website.
Wolf spiders are not poisonous but they can bite if provoked. The bites of a North American wolf spider can be painful but harmless.
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