Last week a fire started in my computer monitor and filled the house with blinding black smoke. I was not home. The firemen reported that it was a smoldering fire and the house was so smoky that they could not see at all. They found the fire by ventilating the rooms. That allowed the fire to flame up so they could put it out. They say the fire had been burning for some time to fill the house, upstairs and down, with that much smoke.

The key is that the system (a 6 year old HP computer) was definitely turned off. All hardware is plugged into a power strip. The power strip is used to turn on the system and the system is only on when in use. Otherwise the system is turned off.

There were some items missing from the room and there was a pillow on the floor that had not been there in the morning. There was the remains of another pillow on top of what had once been the montor.

Question: Can placing a pillow on top of a monitor start a fire? Aren't there heat ventilation holes in the sides and bottom of a monitor?