From one of many other related articles, "The equipment was fed by what Wink called a dangerous, “haphazard daisy chain” of power cords. And on the day of the fire, hours before it broke out, Beckwitt was aware of the smell of smoke in the basement, according to Wink, but reacted only by adjusting the circuit breakers."
That one article can't capture this situation well enough, there was an entire series of them (and it's still ongoing), but one of the issues had to do with the authorities dealing with the situation and simply not knowing what to do to secure the tunnel after the fact. Tunneling was haphazardly done and had gone beyond his property line and undermined neighbors' homes, and it got very complicated.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/a-million... [soft paywall]
From one of many other related articles, "The equipment was fed by what Wink called a dangerous, “haphazard daisy chain” of power cords. And on the day of the fire, hours before it broke out, Beckwitt was aware of the smell of smoke in the basement, according to Wink, but reacted only by adjusting the circuit breakers."
That one article can't capture this situation well enough, there was an entire series of them (and it's still ongoing), but one of the issues had to do with the authorities dealing with the situation and simply not knowing what to do to secure the tunnel after the fact. Tunneling was haphazardly done and had gone beyond his property line and undermined neighbors' homes, and it got very complicated.