The Fire

If you've ever thought to yourself that you think a house fire would be a fun adventure to go on, let me assure you that it is not. By now, most people know that on New Year's Eve, we had a fire in our home.  And because so many people have asked, and I am generally better with writing stories than telling them...  This is what happened.

We slept in.  We were all up late just goofing off and not doing anything important, other than some tidying up of the kids' rooms upstairs. I kept thinking that I should be doing stuff, but lounging ended up being the theme of the day.  I was prepping a meal for my cousins...  Cheese stuffed pasta shells, and a huge pan of chex mix (with Bugles and bagel chips... It was going to be REALLY good chex mix...)  I was set to go out to my mom's to take food to go to Columbus City at 3, and it was around 2:15 I think when we decided we should go do another load of laundry before heading out.  Kids and I went upstairs, I changed the laundry, picked up some stuff, and was in the bathroom tidying some things up in there. 

Next thing I know, Collin is screaming that there is smoke in the house. Being the homeowner who's always on the ball... I knew that sometimes the dryer vent could become blocked, and since we were running that, I went and stuck my head in the dryer but it smelled fine.  I ran downstairs to see if the oven was still on and I'd forgotten to shut it off...  It was off. I ran back upstairs to screaming and terrified children and then I saw it.  

(Our house was formerly two apartments, and so we have a room upstairs which was the kitchen. Technically it still could have been; but we only ever used it for storage and for a litter box for our cats.) Smoke alarms were blaring, and I see the flames on the counter in that back room.  I yelled at the kids who were in varying states of fear to go downstairs.  In my totally irrational thinking, I assumed that even though we never use that room, something must have spontaneously combusted right there on the counter.  I grabbed for the fire extinguisher, did that whole thing, and got the fire out (or at least what I could see of it.)  [Edited to add:  I'm told by the firefighters who were in the house that what we saw was likely just the tip of the iceberg, and that there was more fire in the wall that we couldn't see.  So what I thought was just a small fire was not by that point.]

I made sure the kids were downstairs, they were wide-eyed, terrified, and surprisingly compliant.  Miles didn't have any shoes on, or a shirt... so one of the kids put a coat on him.  They went out onto the porch, and were crying but safe. I ran back upstairs with the phone and called 911, opened up a couple windows to let smoke out, and by then the smoke was heavy.  

Fire department personnel showed up, and went upstairs and very shortly came back down and said that they needed water.  And so I went outside.  And neighbors showed up.  And firefighters.  And more firefighters.  And friends.  And my parents. And neighbors.  And church members.  

And it wasn't a small fire. At all.  And it was so fast. SO fast. 

And we are all OK.  The house isn't.  But we are all OK.  That's what happened.  We weren't even supposed to be home.  Could have been worse.  Could have happened in the night.  That would have been worse.  We could have been downstairs and not realized there was a fire until much later.  That would have been worse.  I'd planned to leave my big kids home alone for a bit while I ran some errands, as they wanted to play with their new christmas toys. They could have been home alone. That would have been worse.   

Here is to a new year that hopefully has only one way to go. 

Check your smoke detector batteries. Have extinguishers.