Lessons Learned from a House Fire
Posted on 26 September 2008 by Jenni Hammitt
Recently my parents had a house fire. Everyone was okay. The only living things in the house at the time were Rachel and Ross (don't judge...my mom did not name them…their previous owners did) the parakeets, and they were rescued before the smoke got to them. Basically, the church groundskeeper (my mom is a minister) set a beam in the garage on fire. The Fire spread up the beam and then tore through the attic. The fire stayed in the attic for the most part, and they ad nothing up there, so most of the damage really is from the smoke and soot.
My family was very lucky. The fire department was able to move and protect several large antiques get the truck our of the garage and really it could have been much worse. When you look at the house, you would think that most everything inside was destroyed, but luckily that wasn’t the case.
I learned quite a bit about people from this whole mess…
1) Apparently, some people think it is okay to kill weeds with a torch. Seriously? Yes apparently the chemical killer just was taking too long. Now I’m not sure if the gentleman in question just came up with this on his own, or if this is common practice in some places.
2) Some people will still try to play the hero role, even when it is very obvious they are at fault. The gentleman who started the fire kept singing his own praises because he ran into the house to get Rachel and Ross. Yes, he did rescue the birds, and yes we are very grateful, but the birds would not have needed rescuing if he had not set the house on fire.
3) Myspace is literally keeping my extended family together. All of the cousins are on Myspace, and they check their account’s regularly. All I had to do is post that there had been a fire at the parents’ house, and my cousin Nikki saw it and told her dad. My dad was getting calls from his family within the hour. There was not a need to make tons of calls, one status update informed the whole family.
4) Our friends usually show their true colors in time of crisis. It really wasn’t my crisis, but people really surprised me. Yes, I mean they surprised me in a good way.
5) It takes more than needed three fire departments on the scene to make the Toledo News. Really it does…you would think in that small of a market they would have jumped all over it.
6) Firefighters can minimize damage to property (if they can get into the house) with fire tarps.
I think the most important thing I have learned from the fire was really more of a reminder. The fire chief initially told my mom and sister the Kitchen Garage and Living Room were gone. The fire was to hot for anything to have survived. The clean up crews and professionals look at the charred garage and roof and think the fire was a total loss. However, once they got inside you see another story. You saw and antique cabinet filled with Havilland China the fire department was able to wrap in a fire tarps and move to safety without breaking a single dish. There was other antique furniture moved out of the flames reach and covered to minimize water damage.
There are huge holes in the ceiling, but the damage to the items in the house is mainly from the smoke. Actually the only thing that was totally destroyed was Rachel and Ross’s play gym. Actually, it wasn’t destroyed by fire, but it was trampled by firemen. Yes, my parents will find other things that it really isn’t worth to effort to salvage (and really I think my sister is going to use this as an excuse to do away with parts of my parents’ wardrobes), but the only total loss was a $25 Bird Gym.
Yes, it looks ugly on the outside, but once you take the time to look inside and put things in perspective, it really isn’t that bad. Once you get past the appearance, and dial down the drama, it still sucks and it isn’t fair, but it isn’t hard to see that things will be okay. Most things are like that. From the outside it is just “hot mess,” but once you calm down and really take a look at it, really isn’t that bad and it could be much worse.
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