Burnin' Down the House

The day after the stock show we continued with our various settling in projects. After a full day of work we were going to head into the city for several errands and then dinner at my dad's house. At 4pm, after being gone for about an hour we received a horrifying call from our neighbor, Cindy. Our house was on fire! The front was engulfed in flames that reached the top of our second story. We immediately rushed home, but we were 20 minutes away. Andy drove 90 down the freeway and then got on to our road and was driving 65 (speed limit is 50). We were being followed by the county sheriff and then a policeman, but they must have been waiting to see where we were going before they decided to pull us over. They pulled into our driveway right behind us and never said a word about our speed.

When we got the phone call Cindy had already dialed 911 and her husband and boys were trying to get some water on the fire. After they tried two hoses only to find they were frozen a second neighbor brought over a working hose. They got the fire out before the fire dept arrived (it took 20 minutes for our rural, half volunteer crew to get there). Thank goodness because they saved our house. The wind was going so good that if no one had been able to do anything before the fire dept arrived we would have lost much if not all of our house. As it turned out our neighbors saved it. We only lost all our front bushes and then the vinyl siding melted off under the porch roof and along the side of the garage. It's warped on the second story, but not enough that we had to pull it off right away. Under the vinyl siding is the old siding that is in great condition and painted the same color as the vinyl. We are very thankful for our brick first story. The repairs will need to be made, but we pulled off all the melted vinyl and will probably wait until spring to fix up the landscaping and re-side.

So, how did this start?? Andy has been dumping our fireplace ashes out front all winter and did the same on that day. They were cold to the touch, but this was the first time there wasn't snow on the ground. It was early in the morning and he was in his slippers so he didn't go as far out as he should have. We were home almost all day and it wasn't until we left that the wind picked up and blew some of the ashes into the bushes in our front planter. Those things are so incredibly dry that it was no problem for them to light and then they went up in a huge blaze. Thankfully, our neighbors were home, their son saw the fire immediately and they went into action.

The firemen were great and checked all over to make sure nothing hot was hidden somewhere. They were also very understanding and didn't think anything stupid had been done. They did tell us not to go anywhere for the next 24 hours so we could keep an eye on it and put more water on it if we needed to. Apparently the root balls of those bushes can burn for quite some time. So, we cancelled our dinner plans and stayed home to watch the bushes. They did start smoking again at 9 that night so Andy doused them in water again. We didn't sleep well that night as we both kept smelling smoke and couldn't tell if it was from the fire outside or our woodstove.

The scary sight we returned home to.

The next time Andy went to dump ashes every single one of us asked him where he was going to dump them as he made his way to the door :).