Have you ever had a house fire?

Just wondering how many DUers have actually experienced the hot topic DU jour..

I'll lead with my own experience, I lost a paid for home I inherited from my parents to a house fire in 1973, the house was not burned to the ground but was damaged so heavily that it had to be demolished.

For the record I lived in a city that had a fire department that was supported by property taxes, there was no one home at the time of the fire and the house was thoroughly aflame before the FD promptly arrived after a call from a neighbor.

that was repairable. I lived in an area with a subscription only fire service (to which I subscribed). The fire department arrived promptly after being notified and extinguished the fire. Had I not been a subscriber, they would have extinguished the fire, then charged me for the man hours and equipment used.

Good for you..

Not everyone is so honorable, indeed in some places over half of the people so invoiced lack your sense of honor.

about 15 bucks a month, cheap insurance at that.

both started by me as a young kid burning trash in a barrel as one of my chores. our home and others were at risk but protected by the local VFD. that's probably why i understand the importance of rural fire protection and understand the frustration of the firefighters in this situation. you'll rarely hear me grumble about a tax or fee. but i'm not stupid enough to force my compassion on those too stubborn to learn life's lessons even the hard way.

About 35 years ago a fire broke out in my parent's house. The cause was a worker doing some renovation dropped a cigarette in some boxes under a stairwell. I noticed the smoke...went into the basement and saw a wall already on fire. Somehow I not only got everyone out of the house (including two dogs) but somehow figured to shut the door to the basement that prevented it from racing upstairs and saving the house from major damage.

The town I lived in didn't have a fire department and would pay by the call to a neighboring community. Before they called, they sent a police car to make sure the fire was legit...wasting precious time. It took about 15 minutes from the first call until a fire engine arrived and started to work on the fire. Had there been a local department, I'm told they would have arrived in 5 minutes. We ended up with a lot of smoke and water damage that took over a year to fix. The town would have several fires that would end in worse results than what I encountered and about 5 years later finally established their own FPD...but it took the loss of two children for that to happen.

Arson, and the VFD saved what they could, which wasn't much. The cat and dog survived, probably because no one would want to tangle with the dog, a samoyed. The previous week, however, someone killed the pet skunks and a semi-tame raccon.

When I went to school on Monday, I was cornered and told I should have gone with it, along with the rest of my family. Quite truthfully, it seems to have been a property issue with the landlord's son and a grudge against my father....as far as I'm able to piece it together.

Needless to say, when we did move, I didn't go back.

survived, oh that is very good. They killed the other animals though.. wtf is wrong with people? omg .. I have to stop thinking of fires, for today anyway.

I was out all day at class and work and no one knew how to reach me. I came home to find the only the front wall standing and everything else gone.

I lost all of my possessions and had no rental insurance. I found out the next day that, as a full time student, my parent's home-owner's insurance covered most of what I lost. Another lucky break concerned my parent's pets. I was supposed to be keeping them while my parents were on vacation but, at the last minute my sister decided to stay at my parent's house and pet sit.

The official cause was electrical.

Came around the corner to his house and it was fully engulfed in flames with the FD and cops present in substantial numbers..

:wow:

When I got home, about five hours after the fire, the place was deserted. I was standing in the front yard trying to wrap my mind around what had happened when the elderly man from across the street walked over. I asked him if he knew what had happened and he replied very casually, "Well, your house burned down. The whole neighborhood turned out to watch."

http://www.snopes.com/humor/jokes/heresign.asp

We all do it sometimes.. :hi:

:toast:

1980. He put it out and then decided to hide the five foot square piece of burnt carpeting by cutting it out and swapping it with a piece cut out from under the sofa. That's where his plan went bad. He hit the cement sub-floor with the utility knife and cut his finger on the broken blade. Then he called me at work and told me there'd been a fire. One of my co-workers had to drive me home because I was too shaken to drive. He had his hand wrapped in a towel and I thought he was badly burned until I saw the blood. Went to ER for stitches.

The barn fire was worse. The horses, goats, chickens, cats, cows and dogs were almost crazy with fear. They ran back into the the burning barn. Some of them died, burned alive. I was a little girl. To this day, the smell haunts me.

The Fire Department was far away and rather unconcerned. My Grandfather got 5 of the neighbors together and we passed buckets of water and used hoses. They had it under control by the time the fire Department ever showed up. Only about a quarter of the barn was destroyed. All my Grandfather said to the the fire chief was "You're too late."

Later the neighbors brought food and helped Grandfather repair the damage. Our neighbors made the difference.

We never did find out how it started, but Grandfather thought it was lightening.

doors and tried to chase the chickens out, but they flew back in and settled into the flames and burned. He couldn't eat chicken from that day on. We rarely had chicken for dinner because it would have to be cooked early in the day so we had time to air the house out before he got home from work since the smell reminded him of the fire.

They had this amazing fan that made the air totally breathable in minutes. It was Thanksgiving and they were there seemingly seconds after we made the call.

and I responded to way too many fires.

Grease fires, when caught in a timely manner, can be taken care off fairly easy.

Sailed off the tiny back porch throwing the pan one way while jumping the other..

That was *sudden*, my heart rate would have done a hummingbird proud..

I NEED to replace the fire extinguisher I had in the kitchen.

Potted plant (sand) works well too if it is enough sand.

I honestly don't remember, this was about forty years ago..

In an emergency you do what occurs to you at the time, hindsight is so often 20/20..

It would surprise me if there were any plants there, I don't remember that either but we weren't plant people.

... last year, my sister's house caught fire due to flames escaping a faulty firebox. The whole back section had to be demolished and the rest of the house was ruined due to smoke and water.

Fortunately for them, they had excellent insurance -- and although they were out of the house for nearly a year while the back section was being completely rebuilt and the front section repaired --- they are now back and the house is better than ever.

It was worth the time and trouble, since the house is a beautiful antique.

Her town has a tax-supported volunteer Fire Department, but the FD sent alarms to other towns and about 5 other towns responded, which kept the house from burning to the ground.

our dog started barking and woke us up, we all ran out of the house in the middle of the night. My dad tried to go back in but couldn't (we grabbed the pets on our way out). The FD came but the fire burnt out my sister's bedroom and the living room, with intense smoke damage. That is one smell you just cannot get out. Thankfully we had insurance and we used the money to do some much-needed renovation.

I have never allowed any electric blankets in our home because of that.

About a year after my house burned I was walking down a residential street when a sudden feeling of dread seemed to come out of nowhere. As I kept walking I eventually recognized the smell and started to look around. Sure enough, I passed the remains of a burned house and realized that the smell had triggered a reaction before my conscious mind even knew it was there.

it's weird how there's nothing else like it, for me anyway. It's been almost 30 years since my house burned but I still know that smell.

One when I was about 12 years old. My best friend's house burned to the ground.
Next when I was in my forties, about 25 years ago. My apartment building burned down. My end of the building wasn't as badly damaged as the other end where my daughter's apartment was, but the whole building had to be torn down and rebuilt from scratch.

in my dorm freshman year in college in the middle of the night. I was on the 10th floor - the people from my floor were the first people out of the building! We knew the ladders didn't reach our floor and we didn't waste any time wondering if it was a drill or false alarm or finding anything but our keys. We just booked down the 10 flights of stairs as fast as we could. There was no damage.

I was in the VA and the doctors were telling me that I might have to have my kidney removed. This was on December 19th and shortly after the doctor's news I was informed I had lost everything due to the house burning down. The city fire dept. responded but due to the fact I lived on OLD Sumrall Road and they first went to Sumrall Road, the chances of saving the house decreased.

edited to note: The fire dept. was one of those evil socialistic types where anyone who had a fire was allowed service so the question of the fire dept. responding was not thought of. The biggest concern was what insurance would pay and never a thought of were we entitled to service.

just remember my mother opening the basement door to find it full of smoke. She yelled, and we hustled my brother out to the side yard. He was rather disgruntled because he'd been napping on the couch. The fire department came and pulled the breaker, I think.

The second time, I left the house to pick up my mother from work, then returned with her half an hour later to find the dryer sitting in the driveway. A foam pillow had caught fire in the dryer, the other kids called the FD, they came and got the dryer out of the house and left within that half hour. Now, that's service!

Smoke detectors are your friends. Have one on every floor, and test yours today.

And both have lost homes to fire recently. When I was a kid, our neighbors' house burned down, and part of ours.

It changed me, totally. I'm 40 and I still think of it almost every single day.

We lived just one block from the fire department, but everyone was at work or school, no one noticed the fire until the house was smoking. The smoke damage was as bad as the actual fire, I'll never forget that smell.

Now I keep a list on the front door of all the things I need to double & triple check before I leave. My husband thinks I'm acting just plain psychotic about it, but I could. not. deal. with that ever happening to me again.
Every time I hear firetrucks or see a fire I get so upset. I don't care who it is, if it's an asshole or a retardican.. whatever, I don't want anyone to lose everything that way.

I don't ever want to live through that again, especially from arson. The smell of the fire and the smell of the accelerant.....can't do it. Still can't stand the smell of some things cooking......

:hug: oh that is about as Evil as anything I can think of. It's horrifying.. no matter how careful you are, someone could still do that to you.

We had to totally rebuild the kitchen, put in new carpet in the house, and repaint everything. I grew up in a little rural town with a volunteer FD.

the wonderful firemen save my cat

truly truly wonderful, saving your cat

they gave him some air and he was fine - cause of fire was some faulty work done on something on the complex exterior

Fire dept. was there within minutes and they tried their best to put it out but it just moved too fast and burned too hot.

We lost a tankful of tropical fish, a young kitteh, a cockatiel and a beautiful, loving Cockatoo named Princess.

House so badly burned that the city demolished before we settled; it took the Goddamn insurance company too long to settle with us. They balked and sulked for 2 straight years.

We had our lives thank God.

Fire dept. services paid for by property taxes.

BTW, this happened on Thanksgiving night, 2005.

major damage, no one hurt.

rented apartment when I was a kid. My aunt lived right down the hall. She did not get out. Whole building was lost plus most of the next building.

I accidentally voted for "fire with minor damage"

I meant to vote for "I've experienced a house fire that caused major damage that was repairable.."

February of 1994 the top and main floor of my parents house got fubared, and the bottom floor became our new swimming pool. The fire was started by one of my brothers using a self-lighting propane torch as a flashlight in the attic.

It took two years to get the house back to the way it was, and it added years/decades of age/stress to my parents, especially my father. I swear, my dad aged a year, everyday that passed. My dad built the house from the ground up, and he had the fortune to rebuild it again, the reason of his aging/stress was primarily the insurance company.

Our fire was called in my a neighbor as well.

and struck a plastic plant that was sitting on the hearth. So I had a burning "bush" in my living room. I called the fire dept but was able to fill a large bowl of water to throw on it.
Looking back, not a smart move since it could have easily spread and blocked my steps that led to the the front door...my kids were on the outside steps yelling at me to get out.

$12,000 worth of damage...multiple electrical appliances zapped, including my outside a/c unit, lots of smoke damage (went thru the air vent from the living room thru the rest of the house, I guess), flame damage to the shelf above the fireplace.

Had it hit anywhere else besides coming down the chimney, the house would have been totally engulfed in flames.

It was a miracle that my kid was not laying in her favorite place on the living room floor near the fireplace.


Spent 10 days in a hotel while repairs were done. State Farm paid for all the house damage, our hotel room, and our meals.

The first few days in the hotel were kinda cool but that coolness wore off after 2 days. Tourists we ran into kept asking us "so where you from?" cuz they thought WE were tourists staying in the hotel.

So many "what if's" went thru my head for several nights, lots of restless nights, to say the least