Fire That Killed Morgan Car Importer May Have Started In Furnace

BODGEA, CA — A furnace inside a closet might have started a fire late Sunday night that killed a man in the Bodega area of west Sonoma County, a county fire inspector said. William Fink, 77, was found dead near a door in the single-story house in the 800 block of Salmon Creek Road. His wife and two other people were able to escape the blaze that was reported around 11:50 p.m.

Fire inspector Charles Rivers said the propane-fueled furnace might have created enough heat in the closet that the wall insulation melted, clogging and eventually rupturing a ventilation line.

The fire then spread from the floor into the ceiling of the closet and throughout the residence, Rivers said.

Fink owned the Morgan Cars USA dealership, which imported and sold the British Morgan automobiles he became enamored of since he attended the University of Oxford in England.

Converting the cars to run on propane enabled him to import them, and he soon had the only Morgan dealership in the U.S. at the time. Several Morgan dealerships now exist in the United States, according to the Morgan Cars USA website.

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