At 2 a.m. this morning my husband and I woke up to crazy, frantic knocking on our door. Groggily rushing down the hallway, I thought to myself Do I really want to open this door? What if this is some crazy seriel killer trying to get in our home? A couple seconds later my husband rushed past me and started screaming, “Oh my God! The RV is on fire!”. I looked out the kitchen window from the hallway and saw red and orange flames coming from outside. I felt like we were in a crappy movie. This couldn’t possibly be happening.
The person was still knocking crazy on our door. I opened it and saw my neighbor screaming, “Your house is on fire! Your house is on fire!” as she was on the phone with 911. I don’t even know if I acknowledged her. My mind started to rush and I immediately ran to get the kids out of bed and tossed them out the front door. Bless their hearts, they had no clue what was going on and they were so quiet. My husband had ran outside to try to turn on the hose bib but burned his hand and cut his finger. We quickly tried to round up our two dogs, but could only find Lucy. David went off to find Charlie. I ran inside to grab my hardrive. Getting that darn thing unplugged seemed like an eternity. Whoever made the monitor plug with the spin screws obviously didn’t take emergencies into account. The fire started to really roar and I could hear some explosions. I always thought I had a pretty good plan of grabbing valuables in case of a quick emergency but it all went to the way side. It was scary enough just trying to rescue the hardrive. We never found Charlie.
As I headed out the door, flames were coming up and over the house and fire embers where floating everywhere. There my family stood in the cold of night, no jackets, no socks. Just watching, knowing our home was about to burn to the ground. I stood out there with the kids, so grateful we all made it out alive and ok. Then it started to hit me of all the things that meant so much to me that were still inside. I didn’t think to grab my other computer’s hardrive, the external hardrive, printed pictures that could never be replaced. My children’s very favorite toys and beloved blankets. My D700. Special clothing the kids wore. Our wedding rings. Heart wrenching just doesn’t even cover it.
My neighbor noticed how cold the kids and I were and asked if we wanted to go to their home. The kids definitely needed to get somewhere warm. While we headed over I could hear the fire trucks coming. The next 4 hours we spent at their house. My husband came over and told us the news.
The house was just fine.
And Charlie, the massive 140 pound lab, was curled up in our bedroom shaking.
The RV was not. It sat in a pile of rubble with nothing but a frame to show for itself. After several hours of investigating it was determined the fire started around the battery area that’s located right under the stairs.
Here’s a shot to show you how close the RV sat to the house
The front of the RV where the 5th wheel part is
The back of the RV. Sitting about a foot behind it is our boat which amazingly was untouched.
The fence got charred but I am amazed it is even still there. Look at how close the fence was to the RV! The wind was blowing towards the house which helped
The master bedroom bed frame
The microwave
Here’s the outside of our house. How we still have a house is nothing short of a miracle.
You can’t really tell too much in this picture but this window cracked in several different places
The siding melted all over the plants
The porch siding
We feel so incredibly blessed and thankful our home is ok! The flames were so big and were blowing all over the top of our house. God definitely looked over us last night. Thank you for all of your good thoughts and prayers. It is all appreciated so much! The kids seem to be handling everything ok. Although little David has said, “The RV is hurt” and “The RV burned” many many times today. Peyton had her 3 year old fire story so this must be his (please God, Katie doesn’t need her own thank you). David and I are much more fragile about it. It has been tough to write this and really get all of this sorted. Those sights, smells, sounds, crazy thoughts will be things I will never forget.
But I feel so incredibly blessed
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