Coping with a house fire

So we had a house fire on Friday night.  It’s all been a soot ridden blur since then.

The house we’re living in is absolutely awesome.  It has a magnificent back yard, a great layout, wonderful outside lighting and is just really cool.  I love the huge pine trees, the squirrel’s carefree frolicking in the back, and my Music of the Spheres windchimes hanging from the front porch which transform a breeze into a gentle music.

So what happened?  Tale and images follow.

We were downstairs in what is basically a very large den where we have our computers setup, play games, and such.  We were playing Magic: The Gathering and listening to some Miniature Tigers on one of the computers.  We had gone to Costco earlier in the day and purchased some Tikka Masala curry which was simmering on the stove upstairs.

The music wasn’t playing very loudly but it’s hard to hear anything upstairs from the downstairs just because of the staircase layout, carpeting, etc.  Having lived in relatively small places (this house is 2300+ sq. ft., not huge but big enough) it’s kind of the first time it’s dawned on me that you might not know what’s going on in another part of the house.

At one point, my super hearing managed to cut through the immediate stimuli and after a “what’s that sound?” I went to run upstairs.  As soon as I got even close to the stairs, I knew it was the fire alarm which wasn’t immediately horrifying because, you know, sometimes they go off when something in the kitchen is burning a bit.

Smoke everywhere hanging probably about two feet down from the ceiling.  I see a pan on the stove on fire as well as flames engulfing the microwave and cabinetry above the stove.  My first instinct is to wet some towels and throw them on the pan that was burning.  My next instinct was a much better one:

We have a fire extinguisher which we use (not by design, originally) as a doorstop for when we’re loading groceries from the garage.  So I knew exactly where it was.  I shot back downstairs, ran back up, pulled the pin and within a second or two the fire was out.  Being something of a fan connoisseur the next instinct was dealing with smoke which was heavy from the plastic of the microwave.  We opened all the windows and got fans in place to help pump out the smoke.

Something that didn’t occur to me was to check the attic.  Once the fire was out as far as I could see, I never thought that it could already have spread elsewhere.  The fire in the kitchen had reached the ceiling, but you could tell there were no breaches in the ceiling leading to the attic.  That’s not a sure sign or anything, but had I seen an actual hole or something I obviously would have though “oh crap, the attic.”

The curry wasn’t the culprit.  The curry was in the pan completely unscathed.  (No, we didn’t eat it.)  There was a pan next to it, however, along with some “heat resistant” kitchenware and a bar mop towel which are always flocked about the kitchen.  I suspect at this point it was a towel too close to the burner which burned long enough to catch the grease from the filters under the microwave.  The microwave was thoroughly destroyed and its slow burning plastic didn’t help matters with the smoke and the cabinetry above.  The smoke damage in the cabinets was extensive and we’ve had a grand time washing every single piece of dishware from the upper caibnets.  Not just running through the dishwasher, but washing, scrubbing, de-sooting.

Soot has the upper hand.  Soot clings and smears and permeates.  It has the advantage of gaseous form and finds its way into places that make life miserable.  Soot wins.  You lose.  If there is one thing we have learned about soot from this fiasco is that soot and water are friends.  Do not clean your soot ridden stuff with anything wet.  We also discovered that there are special soot sponges which actually work quite well.  On Saturday we were at the hardware store to buy a ladder and also these sponges.  Turns out Home Depot doesn’t stock them but a local Ace Hardware did.  The people in Home Depot actually didn’t even know such a product existed.  They act as erasers and pull the soot from the wall.  They’re used dry and then you can clean them with soap and water to reuse them once they’re completely dry again.

Still… repainting and professional cleaning are on the horizon.  We’re just not equipped to do it.  Especially in areas like up in the skylight in the kitchen which turned into something of a chimney.

There are some lessons to be learned from this:

  • Have a fire extinguisher.  Know exactly where it is and that it is charged.  I cannot express this enough.  The fire extinguisher we had undoubtedly saved the entire house.
  • No matter what you’ve got cooking on how low of a heat, don’t leave it unattended.  This may sound obvious but how many people leave something simmering on the stove?  Or a crockpot?  It’s just simmering on the lowest possible heat, right?  Never again will I do this.
  • Have more than one smoke alarm.  Ours was in the hall and was going off wildly but we just didn’t hear it.  If we had been sleeping we might all be dead.  I don’t know how this works but it seems like the smoke alarms should also be tied together.  I know buildings do this, obviously.  If there had been one downstairs that also went off, we would have known about it instantly.
  • Insurance.  Homeowners insurance is obviously required by law… but if you’re renting, do you have renters insurance?  The cost is so nominal compared to what it can save.

It has been a sad weekend indeed.