I can't fathom how scary and difficult this would be.
We were walking the dog on Saturday afternoon when we saw this huge billow of smoke in front of us. It looked to be several blocks away but it was big and black and scary.
We then heard sirens. We knew it wasn't a good thing.
We didn't want to walk over towards it and be looky loo's while fire trucks needed to get there and do their thing.
We waited to see if anything was on the news and it wasn't.
Later in the evening when taking Izzy out for her last walk we saw a neighbor walking her dog with her little girl.
While the two dogs were chasing one another she told us that her friends house burnt because they were next door to the house that started the fire. They were with them at a basketball game with their kids when they got a call to hurry home their house was on fire.
Can you even imagine how awful that phone call was to hear?
By the time they got to their home they had lost the 2nd story.
Thankfully the worse did not happen. No one was hurt.
All animals and people were saved.
This morning Rick and Izzy walked over to the homes and he snapped a couple of photo's and talked to the neighbors. The neighbors all praised the fire department and how quickly they got there and did a great job. Especially from saving other homes from going up in flames.
This is what happened.
A woman was cooking something with oil in her kitchen.
It caught fire and spattered all over the place. So what does she do?
She put a dish cloth over the pan and brought it out to her garage.
As Rick is telling me this I am dumb struck - she did what??????
She went back into her kitchen to clean up the splattered oil and her garage caught fire.
By the time she noticed this her house was engulfed as well as neighbors on either side and neighbors a few doors away.
This is the woman's home who thought it'd be a good idea to put a dish cloth over flames and leave it in the garage.
Note the melting siding.
And this house below was 2 doors away from the original fire. It too has melting siding.
When her mom answered her she began to cry.
I felt the same way.
14 comments:
i know two people whose houses have burned, and the year before last i was an accidental witness to a house fire in maine.
the hard thing is that even what doesn't burn is mostly ruined from smoke and water.
when my friend margot's house burned to the ground she was on the first day of a caribbean vacation.
"oh, my goodness!" i said. "did you come home right away?"
"the vacation was paid for. what was i going to do, rush home and rake the coals?"
she said she thought it was the universe's way of telling her she had too much stuff.
whoops, sorry.
forgot to post the link to the entry where i saw the fire:
http://furthermoreflask.blogspot.com/2010/05/accidental-witness.html
Thank God no one was hurt. Things can always be replaced. But yeah, I can't imagine going through a house fire. How devastating. And I'll bet you can never really get that smell out of everything, either! What a horrible reminder!
Did the woman who started it live alone? Is she old, and losing it a little, or was it just a dumb mistake, do you think?
oh how sad and awful.
when we lived in gainesville a home two streets over from us burned to the ground. everyone got out safe but it was very scary and the boy who lived there was the same age as monty. i always wonder how he fared because we moved just a week or two later. i think about him from time to time.
How many times have you heard over the years - "If you have a fire in a pan, put a lid on it. Don't move it, don't throw water on it!" That's a hard leason for her to learn.
We have a BC fire extinguisher near the stove.
Because I am anal (and convinced bad shit will happen to me just because (and usually when I least expect it)), we have an extinguisher on every floor, sometimes in two different rooms on each floor. I oftentimes wonder how I'd react in a fire. I do know how to respond to kitchen fires while cooking but actually being in the house while it's in flames? I guess you can't really say until/unless it happens, huh?
When my oldest Son was a tiny baby, I left the bottle sterilizer on the stove and ran to take a quick shower, which would have been fine, time-wise. However, I was so tired, I forgot about it and went to bed! We woke up to a smoke filled house, from the rubber nipples and bottle caps. My house and our nostrils and skin were covered in black soot. We were lucky! About 30 years later, my sister and her family had been living there, but they were currently living in my parents house. (after they had passed away) The house was still completely full, when local kids broke into it, started a fire... and burned it to the ground! Photos, mementos, tapes of her kids and an entire house full of things that can never be replaced.
I have three brothers who have lived through their houses being burnt to the ground. That's 50% of my sibs including me that has had a house fire. I think with those odds, I might be safe but one thing it has taught all of us is that stuff is stuff, in the end it's your family that matters most.
But to take a burning pan to the garage? Now that's plain dumb unless you have NOTHING in that garage and you placed it in the middle of the concrete floor. But I can't say I know many people who don't store stuff in their garage, especially the flammable stuff :o/
So, Peg, I thought about this all night (maybe the photos of the houses stuck w/me). But, I decided to ask my coworkers what they knew about grease fires. I SHIT YOU NOT the four who are under 25 ALL SAID they saw nothing wrong with trying to extinguish it with a dish towel. Or water. Or simply moving the pan to another part of the house, but not OUTSIDE OF THE DAMN HOUSE! The rest of us (30+ and older) looked like we could have thrown our staplers at their foreheads in unison to try to jar the sense that has to be in there somewhere.
Arnebya - wow that is amazing. Everyone in my neighborhood is young. But I am not sure about this woman. As I get more infor I am definitely going to post it. I have come to realize there is no such thing as common sense....or more people would have it!
I forwarded this to my son.
I get tweets from his college radio station and one night they said there was fire department activity at the on-campus apartment complex he lives in. I asked him what happened and he said some girls in one of the buildings caught grease on fire. It set off the sprinklers in the entire building. Luckily they got it out. He blamed the girls for being "dumb" but I doubt he would have known what to do either.
Julie - oh my goodness you make me howl. My sentiments exactly.
Sue - I am not that most would know but you would think it would be somewhat common sense to not put a towel over it and put it somewhere else in your home.
And that right there is why I have a fire extinguisher under the sink. I don't know but don't you cover it with a pan or something????
Either way, it doesn't change the situation. That's horrible and it takes forever and a day to recover from something like that. We went through flooding up north and lost the house in the process. Gawd, that was awful. I don't envy them....
Lizbeth - I do believe you put a lid on it and call 911. Do not clean up the mess first. :-)
I have a fire extinquisher on 2 floors....just in case.
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