House fire next door
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Not an analogy.
We had a nice storm roll through today around 730pm, and I was in my son‘s bedroom, listening to the strong thunder from bolts of lightning nearby, and counting them by seconds, while getting him changed for bed. Suddenly, we realized the house across the street had some light smoke coming from the back of it, then it turned to dark smoke and we called 911 immediately for the fire department. The last time I called 911 was when I was eight and it was a prank call I learned not to do again!
Four adults live in that house… two parents and their 1 year old daughter, along with 2 grandparents. They are Chinese and only the dad knows English as far as I know.
While I was on the call, my wife ran over and banged on the door loudly to no avail. A few minutes later, we see the dad come out of his garage, so I run over to talk to him, he has no idea about any of the smoke so he and I walked to his backyard quickly. We find a roof shingle on the ground, then look up and realize his back porch has a charred mark on the wood frame, he said that was not there before. Struck by lightning was the first thought!
All of this is happening with a matter of a few minutes by the way.
Also all of this post is via voice dictation, sorry.
I told him I had already called 911 because we had seen smoke, and asked if I could go in his house and check. So I went in and quickly ran upstairs, it turned out the family was in the basement during the storm and had no idea about any of this (and also why they didn’t come to the door when my wife first went over).
The rest seems like a blur, but basically I could tell there was a flickering light in their master bathroom, so I knocked loudly and then slowly open the door to find a burning highchair. See pic.
Cut to the chase, it looks like the lightning struck the house, travel down the exhaust fan, and caught the chair in fire. I quickly yelled out loudly that there’s a fire in the house and if there’s an extinguisher nearby? The dad quickly found an extinguisher under the kitchen sink, and I took it back upstairs and put out the fire as well as the fire in the exhaust fan in the ceiling. By then the dad joined with his own extinguisher and helped spray. I could tell there was likely still fire in the attic somewhere, but did not go further as the first firefighter had arrived, and I told him what I had seen and done and he told everyone to leave the house immediately. I showed him where the attic access is in the master closet.
I walked back outside and saw as expected about a half dozen fire trucks, as well as my wife and kids watching from our house window. What I did not expect was to come back in the house and my wife was beyond livid, I’ve never seen her so mad, I guess from her perspective I can understand as it looks like I went into a burning house, whereas from my perspective on the ground we did not see any flames or any smoke, and simply we’re going inside to see if this was the house that had smoke in the first place, we had no idea there’d be a fire in the bathroom. I’m glad we put it out as well as the fire in the ceiling exhaust fan, it likely saved a good portion of the house.
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Scary stuff, and well done, 89. My safety-engineer self says you absolutely shouldn't have gone in, but I can see why you did.
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Definitely brave @89th. I’m on your side here. You did amazingly well .. adrenaline must have fueled your decision making. You saved an entire family who were unaware & could’ve perished in their basement. I’d be thanking God you were where you were in your kid’s room looking out that window then … house fires, attic fires spread quickly, jump to neighbouring houses … plenty of examples of this.
Years back, a work colleague lost their entire home to an attic fire. She admitted she was forever changed by this. -
Wow! You’re a hero and your wife is mad. We’re totally on your side.
Seriously though good job.
@jon-nyc said in House fire next door:
Wow! You’re a hero and your wife is mad. We’re totally on your side.
Seriously though good job.
LOL another neighbor sent me a random text that night that said, "in the event your wife is made you went in, you did a good job" and I asked if he was a mind reader and he said no that he was in a similar scenario a few years ago and that he learned "a hero is a hero everywhere but at home", hahaha
I'm not a hero, just glad I was looking out the window when I did. Everything else was common sense, check the house, and when flames were found, to spray it with an extinguisher. What was I going to do, just run out of the house and say "good luck!!!!!" not knowing where their baby was or that we had the chance to put out the fire before it really took off and destroyed the house?
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@Mik said in House fire next door:
I can see her perspective, but I trust your judgement. You're a good human, not a fool.
Ha, that was my main reply... that she should trust I would've have gone in had I known there was an actual fire. Also, now that I recall, I took my shoes off when I first went in out of respect for their house. Had it been an emergency, I'm not sure I would've stopped to take my shoes off!
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Definitely brave @89th. I’m on your side here. You did amazingly well .. adrenaline must have fueled your decision making. You saved an entire family who were unaware & could’ve perished in their basement. I’d be thanking God you were where you were in your kid’s room looking out that window then … house fires, attic fires spread quickly, jump to neighbouring houses … plenty of examples of this.
Years back, a work colleague lost their entire home to an attic fire. She admitted she was forever changed by this.@blondie said in House fire next door:
Definitely brave @89th. I’m on your side here. You did amazingly well .. adrenaline must have fueled your decision making. You saved an entire family who were unaware & could’ve perished in their basement. I’d be thanking God you were where you were in your kid’s room looking out that window then … house fires, attic fires spread quickly, jump to neighbouring houses … plenty of examples of this.
Years back, a work colleague lost their entire home to an attic fire. She admitted she was forever changed by this.Thanks @blondie - it's funny, the memory of actually going in and putting out the first (except in the attic) is a weird blur. Almost like a dream memory. I wonder if that was due to adrenaline kicking in, what a strange feeling.
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Hahahaha right? I was using my phone's flashlight since their lights were off upstairs so it was in my hand and when I saw the chair on fire I thought the family might want to see what I saw later for insurance or proof. Not sure why I thought that, but they did ask for the photo later in the evening, as well as the deputy fire chief so they could document the cause as lightning or something.
