Blast caused by stove baffles fire department

The fire was cooling down when the explosion happened.
CANFIELD -- Cast-iron wood-burning stoves like the one that injured 15-year-old Michael Deutschlander at his Herbert Road home aren't expected to just explode.
Robert Tieche, chief of the Cardinal Joint Fire District, said he's never seen anything like it.
"It just disintegrated," Tieche said. His department has no idea why.
Chuck Hanni, an investigator for the state fire marshal's office, said he has no idea why either, and he wishes the fire department had called him in to investigate the night of the explosion.
Calling marshal's office
"I couldn't even imagine," Hanni said. "I wish they would have called. I don't know why they didn't. If there's an explosion with injuries, they should call the fire marshal's office."
He said Thursday that it was too late for an investigation now, especially if the family has moved parts of the stove.
Tieche said there was nothing suspicious about the explosion. He said there was no reason for his department to call the fire marshal's office.
"We have our own investigator," he said.
Hanni wondered if the fire department had taken samples of the stove. Tieche said it didn't.
Tieche said the department's investigator is "doing research." A report will be submitted to the fire marshal's office, he said.
About the stove
Michael Deutschlander, who was with his son in a pole building on the family's property when the stove exploded, said the boy was never out of his sight, and he's sure he never put any kind of accelerant into the stove.
Deutschlander said the stove was probably at least 34 years old -- the same age as their house. It was in the house when they moved in three years ago. He said he found the stove's nameplate, and it was manufactured by the Oakland Foundry Co. of Bellville, Ill., but he could find no trace of that company on the Internet.
The stove was originally in a room that was used as a beauty shop, Deutschlander said. But he remodeled that room into a master bedroom and moved the stove out to the pole barn.
He said he checked the stove thoroughly before lighting it, and the damper was "wide open."
Compounding the mystery, he said, is the fact that the fire in the stove was not at its peak. The stove had been burning for about an hour and a half, and was cooling down when the explosion occurred.