BE-COMING HOME: up in flames

Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves.
 [Italian Proverb]

On Saturday night, 17 November 2012, Roy shoveled the cold ashes from Friday night’s fire into the tin pail we kept by the wood burner for that purpose.  On Sunday night, 18 November, he took the pail down to the carport and dumped the ashes into the yard trash bin.

Gradually, the ashes trickled down to the bottom of the bin, where they settled on and around a bit of plant matter.  As the night wore on, the hidden heat from Friday’s ashes caused the plant matter to catch fire.  (Yes, hidden heat.  We later learned from the Fire Marshal that apparently “cold” ashes can hold residual heat for up to 5 full days.)

Somewhere in the neighborhood of 1:00am on the morning of Monday 19 November, the heat from the burning flora in the yard-trash bin transferred to the adjacent bin – the recycling.  The recycling was all paper and plastic; it went up like a torch.

The torch was surrounded by prime kindling.  Behind was the wood board-and-batten of the house’s exterior.  Before was close to a cord-and-a-half of seasoned oak.  Above was our lovely redwood deck, all nicely oiled and sealed for winter.

Had Roy been asleep upstairs, had Neil been in the shower or had his ear-buds in, this story could well have taken a truly nasty turn.  Roy was in the office, fully dressed, keeping awake for the sole purpose of giving me a goodnight kiss when I got home from work (what a guy!).  Neil had only been off-the-job for about 45 minutes and was preparing to take a shower.

Roy heard some popping sounds, figured it was from the fire in the wood burner and ignored them.  The sounds persisted.  He got up to check.  As came out of the office, he saw flames reaching through the deck and past the front windows.  (Turned out the “popping” he’d heard was the sound of the window panes cracking vertically from the heat.)

Roy’s first attempt to call 911 was a bust; the land-line wasn’t working.  A second attempt from his cell went through, but another thing we later learned that we wish we’d known before:  calls to 911 from cell phones are shunted to a central dispatch unit, who then forward the call to the proper parties.  Roy’s S.O.S. was relayed through four stations before finally ringing at our local fire station.  A matter of minutes, yes – but when your house is a raging bonfire, a few minutes is a very long time.  (Please, find your local emergency response numbers and get them into your cells – on speed dial.  NOW.)

While Roy was calling, Neil ran out of the house – starkers — to see if there was anything he could do about the fire.  Soon realizing it was already beyond the power of our little garden hose to affect, he ran back into the house and grabbed his laptop.  Both boys escaped out the back.  They were tempted to return – Neil was especially keen to see if he could rescue his wallet, car keys, power cord or a pair of pants – but the entire front of the house was ablaze and the back rooms were filled with smoke.  Wisely, they elected to retreat downhill, dodging (or at least not getting hit by) the falling power cables.

By the time help arrived, the fire had already spread to our neighbor’s towering cedar.  The formidable task facing the fire-fighters was to contain the blaze on our property and save the neighborhood.  Eight fire trucks, so I heard, and 30-something fire-fighters…  we’re grateful it was winter and not the bone-dry end of summer.

Me, I hadn’t a clue what was happening at the old homestead until I turned up our street and found it blocked by fire trucks, fire-fighters, folks …

I had to endure only a moment of pit-of-stomach fear before one of the vague figures headed my way solidified into Neil’s unmistakable silhouette and I realized the guy beside him was Roy.  I went from shock and despair to relief and gratitude all in heartbeat.

Someone thrust clothes at me through the car window.  Someone told me to contact FISH first thing the next day.  Everyone was offering help — the outpouring of love, succor and sympathy was enormous and immediate.  There was a black hole on the hill where my home used to be, but the boys were ok.  We were ok.  Everything was going to be fine…

But our beautiful home, our wonderful stuff, the comfortable life of late we’d led had gone up in flames.

a public hazard