Rice Bag Causes Oregon Apartment Fire

Firefighters say a rice bag intended as therapy for sore muscles got too much time in the microwave, burned a couch and then gutted an apartment in a Jackson County town.

The Medford Mail Tribune reports that a resident of an apartment in Eagle Point threw the smoldering bag of rice on a couch outside early Monday.

A spokesman for a county fire department says the bag was hot enough to ignite the couch, and the blaze spread back to the dwelling.

An alarm went off, and all the residents got out. Two people were displaced from the damaged apartment.