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The story
A fire broke out at a home in Kurokawa, Shirakawa, Gifu Prefecture around 8:30 a.m. on the 12th, taking firefighters three and a half hours to extinguish. The blaze is believed to have spread from flames being used to exterminate a hornet’s nest; the man in his 70s doing the work fell off his ladder in shock, and the main house where the fire started, along with an adjacent building, burned down completely. On 5ch’s Breaking News+ thread, posters eagerly traded tips on real-world extermination methods (electric BB guns, pesticide-filled water guns, freeze sprays), while speculation spread about how fire insurance works — “even minor negligence gets paid out” — spinning into talk of whether the man actually profited by torching an old house.
On the 12th, a fire broke out at a home in Shirakawa, Gifu Prefecture. It’s believed to have spread from flames being used to exterminate a hornet’s nest.
According to police and fire officials, at around 8:30 a.m. on the 12th in Kurokawa, Shirakawa, Gifu Prefecture, a neighbor called 119 to report that “a single-story house is on fire.”
Firefighters responded, and the blaze was put out in about three and a half hours, but the main house believed to be the source of the fire, along with an adjacent building — two structures in total — burned.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Do hornets really leave the nest after a month? I found a dried-out, empty honeybee nest stuck under my eaves too.
I was sniping a hornet's nest and someone actually called the cops on me.
I just blast mine with a Kärcher pressure washer while they're still small.
It really burned down without a trace, huh. So the main house plus two outbuildings all went up?
Re: #26
If he's got fire insurance, he'll come out ahead with a brand-new house built from the payout ("yakebutori" — profiting off a fire) and everyone will even thank him for it. He could rebuild it barrier-free for his old age too.
I'm planning to do the same with a yellow hornet nest at my place — dilute Sumithion (an organophosphate insecticide) 20x and hit it with a water gun at night. Saw it online — apparently it's a sure-fire method.
Happens plenty in Japan too lol. Burned a whole temple down once lol.
Honestly, any insecticide works — the trick is to spray an LP-gas-propelled insecticide can and immediately light the gas with a lighter, turning it into a flamethrower.
Meaning: a cautionary tale about panicking while trying to remove a minor pest (the hornets) with a reckless method (fire), and in doing so ruining yourself and losing a great fortune (the house) — a colossal blunder.
"He smoked out the wasps and burned down his own house, losing the very thing he meant to protect." (a mock classical-Chinese-style aphorism)
Can't help it now. (a pun: "shouka-nai" = "no fire extinguishing" plays on "shouganai," meaning "it can't be helped")
Depending on your local government, they might even give you a subsidy for that.
That might be a huge discovery. What kind of freeze spray was it?
That's because it's like 10,000 yen a job.
Does insurance really pay out for something like this?
Fire insurance distinguishes between minor and gross negligence, and apparently if it doesn't look deliberate on the surface, you get paid out under the minor-negligence category. Burn down an old house, pocket 20 million yen, score sympathy gifts from neighbors and relatives on top of that, then get paid by the media for your story afterward — what a genius.
But I feel like this one wouldn't actually fly. If you try to burn a hornet's nest that's attached to your house, there's obviously a real risk the house itself catches fire, so…
Without evidence, any story holds up. Even people out in the countryside all know hornets don't fly at night and that sprays made for removing them exist. There's no reason to go out of your way to use fire — which is less effective and more dangerous — in broad daylight. Go ahead, show me proof this was intentional — I think that would be extremely hard to prove.
Does fire insurance really pay out even in a case like this? It's basically like he lit the fire himself.
Apparently it counts as minor negligence, so the fire insurance pays out in full as a rule. Since it's a big old house, profiting off the fire is basically guaranteed.
So it physically turned into a "heat-killing bee ball"? (a real honeybee defense tactic where workers swarm an intruder and cook it with body heat) (´･ω･\`)
That reminds me, I once heard that to track down a nest, people would catch a hornet beforehand, tie a twisted paper wick to it, light it at dusk, and let it go — then follow the glowing point of light through the dark to trace the hornet's path back to the nest. Not sure if that was for hornets or honeybees. If you're careless, the leftover embers can start a wildfire, so losing sight of the light is absolutely forbidden.
Background and talking points
Using fire to remove hornet nests is a method long practiced in rural areas, but fire departments and local governments have repeatedly warned about the risk of fires spreading during dry spells. The claim that spread through the thread — “minor negligence still gets a full insurance payout” — isn’t wrong as a general principle, but actual payouts are decided case by case by insurers after they investigate whether there was gross negligence or intent, so full compensation isn’t automatic. What sets this apart from a simple accident report is that most replies treated the fire as a jumping-off point for swapping tips on real extermination techniques (electric BB guns, insecticides, freeze sprays, and the like), while speculating about just how negligent the man was and where the insurance payout would end up.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Breaking News+) thread “[Gifu] Man in his 70s removing hornet’s nest with fire falls off ladder in shock, fire spreads to building, main house and others go up in flames.”
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