My kids survived our house fire. Will yours?
I never imagined I’d stand barefoot, in thirty one degree weather, and watch my house and everything we own burn down. Six weeks ago, that happened to our family’s farmhouse. Nestled in a national park, thirty minutes outside the nation’s capitol, the twenty-plus fire units that responded just watched the house burn to the ground…alert and ready to stop the fire from catching the forest, but with no intention of saving our home or belongings.
We’re an active duty military family with four young daughters. We’ve moved to the four corners of the continental United States, always passing our housing allowance over to a landlord and dreaming of land of our own to farm, raise healthy animals, and eat from our own flourishing kitchen garden. In a generation where children are addicted to technology and electronic devices, we wanted our girls to connect with the outdoors, learn valuable life skills and how to appreciate hard work. We never imagined our dream would literally go up in flames that cold winter morning.
It was a Friday afternoon, and I was cleaning and setting up to have friends over that evening. Our eleven- and nine- year olds were sitting at the table doing homework, and our four-year old twins were napping downstairs in the master bedroom. My mother-in-law and the dogs were relaxing indoors, on a cold and drizzly winter’s day. I carried the kitchen trash to the front door to carry out to the containers off the front driveway, and as I opened the door I saw huge waves of flames licking up the wall of the wooden garage door and siding immediately in front of me. I slammed the door, called out to my mother-in-law and daughters to run out the back sunroom door to the cherry tree, and I ran to our bedroom and scooped our twins out of a nap and carried them outside. Even with smoke detectors all over our house, and in the garage, there was no sound or smell…the fire was discovered by seeing walls of flames after opening the front door. We all met at our cherry tree, the corner of the orchard closest to the house but far enough away from the structure to safely regroup. My mother-in-law was on the phone with 911, alerting them to the fire, and the connection was patchy. Realizing our landline might fail us, I told the girls to stay at the cherry tree with their grandma and verified both the dogs were safely outside, then ran back into the house looking for my cell phone. I saw my purse and my mother-in-law’s purse, grabbed them both, then remembered where my cell phone was and ran to the charger to grab it. I was in and out of that house in less than a minute. Six weeks later, all that remains unscathed from the fire are the six of us, the two purses, and the one cordless telephone handset. Everything else is gone. I had on flip-flops, but my mother-in-law and girls were all barefoot.
After confirming 911 knew where we were and about the fire, and were on their way, I attempted to call my husband at work. It was approximately 1:50 in the afternoon. I discovered that after going to voicemail, I was unable to dial zero or get any kind of operator to locate him to explain the emergency. I then realized I had five other barefoot, cold people and a dog to take care of. I decided we’d all go to the neighbor’s house, and began calling and texting and walking everyone over the quarter mile to safety. After safely getting everyone to the neighbors, I saw a police car fly by and I ran back to intercept him. The policeman asked me to stay on hand to answer any questions and help the first responders. It was a long, cold wait. It took the local volunteer fire department just under an hour to show up, and they lost control of their hose and the water was lost all over our front lawn.
More trucks and firefighters in full gear showed up, but there wasn’t any more water for another thirty minutes or so. The head firefighter came to talk to me, and I explained we had just filled an oil tank with 275 gallons and where it was located. He told me they were assuming a defensive position to protect the forest, and that the fire had spread to the attic and was too far gone to save the house. The second water truck that arrived spent every drop keeping the fire from igniting that oil tank. My husband was finally alerted and arrived on scene around 4:30, and the house was entirely engulfed in flames and a total loss.
We lost every possession we had in that fire, save the clothes on our back and my purse. We’d had our critical documents in a fire safe for many years, but after several military moves the key was lost and I’d recently thrown it out. A lifetime of hard work, beautiful things and priceless family memories in the form of pictures and inherited treasures, all gone. Every piece of paper evidencing who we are and life milestones such as birth and marriage, gone.
I’d love to say that the insurance company, showed up with cash and helped us as we stood in shock watching the sunset over our farmhouse, now in embers, but that’s not what happened. We found out later they’d sent an email, and our representative had tried to call but had bad cell coverage on his side. So, friends and family stepped into help us process and cope with sudden homelessness and the loss of everything we had…even our shoes! The truth is our insurance company followed what we discovered is standard procedure: they opened a fraud and background investigation on us that lasted three weeks, to determine if we were at fault. We received the barest of communication and information from them.
In the end, we were cleared and the insurance company has come through for us. But we lived through a hellish few weeks, having lost everything and trying to make sure our four girls adapted emotionally and were taken care of, while we were held at arms distance and treated as potential criminals. Here are the key lessons learned:
- Have a plan and a safe meeting place close by, but far enough away from your structure for everyone to meet.
- Rehearse that plan with your family. Everyone knew to meet at the cherry tree and that made our evacuation and regrouping process quick & seamless.
- Keep a set of shoes out in the sunroom (or your alternate exit). Had we done that, we could’ve avoided being barefoot for hours in below freezing weather.
- Invest in a fire extinguisher — if your house is big enough, invest in two. In this case, it wouldn’t have mattered but it is something worth having in an emergency.
- Invest in a fire safe and keep your critical documents there. FYI — freezers do not survive a house fire — at all — thus dispelling an urban legend.
- Back up all our pictures and documents to external hard drives…we did….but they were also in the house. I’d make two sets of those hard drives and send one to each of our parents as backups. Maybe it is time to trust the “cloud”…
- Be cognizant of where you park your car in relation to your house, if you can. I wouldn’t have parked our minivan right next to the house that was on fire, and lose that too. I’d park it a little farther away and have saved our vehicle.
- Keep more cash on hand, to deal with a catastrophic and unexpected loss like the one we experienced. At least $5-$10k available for all the expenses that will hit in just the first few days. After losing everything, it was not uncommon to spend A LOT of money just getting enough clothes to avoid twice daily laundry sessions.
I hope a house fire never happens to you or your family. But if it does, these few extra steps can save you plenty of heartache and make a terrible tragedy a little less stressful.
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