The 1985 Valley Parade fire
Hm. Well, no evidence of an accelerant was found by the investigators. And Czes Pachela referred to a cigarette and a plastic cup when he was interviewed at the time. Reported by Associated Press - there's an online archive of the Galveston Times that carries the AP piece: http://www.newspapers.com/newspage/36357310/
NHH wrote: Martin Fletcher keeps coming back to a strong plastic smell in the area of the fire's first appearrance, which he doesn't believe was investigated; the suggestion is that this could have been an accelerant.
Czes Pachela, who escaped with his 5-year-old daughter Joanne, said he had told police he saw the -"pure accident" that led to the inferno. Pachela said he was sitting in the Valley Parade grandstand ^Saturday and noticed three men , nearby drinking from plastic cups. ,.He believed one of them dropped a I. cigarette butt in a cup and then he smelled burning plastic. "One of the men said, 'My mate ,has set something alight.' Then , one of them got down and was crawling about on his hands and knees as if he was looking for something," Pachela said. "I saw flames under the floorboards. They had spread quickly before the smoke became visible. Then an orange,flame appeared and it flared very quickly," he said.
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