This was in my old house some time ago...(yeah, I know sounds like a corny rip off of starwars
)
I was in the basement sharpening some chisels for work the next day and thought I could speed up the process so i could get to bed earlier. Started up my little belt sander with shop vac hooked up so I wouldn't get metal shavings all over and sharpened my chisels.
The lighting never was very good in the basement and I started to notice a strange smell, then I noticed a strange glowing out of the corner of my eye. I looked over and thought to myself, why is the shopvac glowing like a jackolantern? A couple seconds later I realized the entire basement (and upstairs
) was filling with smoke. I grabbed the shop vac and ran outside (had exterior stairs kinda like a cellar would have) and ripped apart the shopvac in the hopes of saving it. The metal sparks had ignited the sawdust and bag inside and as soon as I removed the bag the whole thing basically blew up in my face as the bag fell apart and the sawdust all ignighted at once. Sooo... I didn't need to shave (or get a haircut) the next day and I was missing part of an eyebrow. And nope. I was unable to save the shopvac. The tub was melted through and the motor whined like mad and smelled like burnt popcorn no matter what I tried to get rid of the smell.