It’s 6:45 Sunday morning, and my wife and I are awakened by a strong banging on the front door. It’s hard to hear at first, maybe it’s just the dogs thumping around. Nope, definitely a strong banging. And now there’s a guy shouting something. What’s he saying? Can you hear? Is he a crazy? Fire? “There’s a fire out here!” That doesn’t make any sense.
Run to front door. Guy in hat looking exasperated. “There’s a fire out here, want me to call 911?” Uh, where and yes.
The next 15 minutes are a sequence of flashing images: Smoke wafting around in the air. Melissa and me and guy staring at a line of fire working its way up the hillside and within arm’s reach of our house. Noticing the fire has breached the forest and made its way into the backyard. Smell the smoke. Hear the crackle and sizzle. Me running inside for buckets. Me unable to find where Melissa hid the buckets. Me cussing Melissa. Running outside with bucket of water. Cooper the Beagle following me and standing a few feet away from open, spreading flame. Me successfully dousing part of fire with water. Guy, on phone with 911: “Yeah, there’s some electrical lines overhead.” Me with bucket, staring at electrical lines and bucket. Guy: “They don’t want you to dump any more water on it.” Me: “I’m putting this section out.” Windsprint down the driveway for a better view from street. Flames zigzagging toward house. Ash spread everywhere. Three fire engines, four other supporting vehicles, two dozen firefighters. Two hoses going, Jarrettsville Volunteer firepeople with rakes, scaling hillside. Crisis averted. Deep breath.
I’ve written up hundreds of fire call stories over the last decade, but never one while standing on my front porch. I assumed the fire was sparked by an ember from the chimney, but the Chief thinks it may have been a cigarette discarded on the side of the road. There is a clear trail of ash starting on the side of the road and working its way into my backyard. The fire was probably burning for several hours. It stopped where the leaves stopped and followed the wood-/leaf-line along the side of the house – except for the backyard, which is still covered with leaves. That’s how it would have gotten to the house.
In the spirit of President’s Day, please remember to rake the leaves away from your house and never toss out a lit cigarette butt – especially into a patch of forest on the outskirts of a state park along a dead end road. And if your subscription to a daily newspaper runs out, but they keep delivering it for free anyway, don’t call and complain – sometimes there can be unexpected side benefits to having a delivery man pull into your driveway every morning. One day he may just save your ass.
After I put these thoughts down on paper, I crashed back in bed, but it got me thinking about what I would have done if things had been ratcheted up a notch.
What if we woke up and the house was on fire? Would my reaction have been the same?
If I had 30 minutes until the point of no return, what would I have done/taken with me? What if I had 5 minutes? You grab the dogs, of course. If we have time, do we grab the computers/cameras/phones? My guitars? Which guitar (Gibson electric, acoustic, Rick Springfield autograph (yes, true)? Any of my book collection? Any of my newspaper collection? Would my samurai swords survive the blaze? All our artwork/collectibles/homemade taxidermy? My band’s merchandise box? Is it weird that there’s not a single piece of clothing I’d bother to save?
Is it bad that I’m this possesive or strange that I’m not moreso?
This fire was noticed at 6:45 on a Sunday morning.
If it’s burning at 6:45 on a Thursday morning, then it just keeps on burning…
I have never understood a smoker’s attitude/perception that it’s somehow okay to throw their cigarette butts on the ground. Do they somehow rationalize that it’s not any different than throwing their trash out the car window? (At least trash doesn’t set fires.) I watched my own mother throw her half smoked cigarette on the ground at a McDonalds saying they should have a place for her to dispose of it, so it’s not her fault. REALLY? This sadly seems to be the general consensus of smokers. Great article though! Glad your house didn’t burn down because some idiot decided to toss their cigarette out the window. To be fair, they shouldn’t have to dispose of that nasty thing in their own vehicle, lol.
Are you a professional writer?
I hope not, because this was painful to read.
Great article, Brian! As for not being able to read it???!!! Apparently you don’t read very much and are not familiar with various styles and techniques for storytelling, Mike.
Are you a professional butthead? I hope so, because you seem pretty qualified.
Mike,
If you find reading painful, maybe it’s time to stop lashing out at the quality of the writing, and start asking yourself serious questions like, why would you read the whole of something that was causing you pain? Why wouldn’t you just stop? More importantly, why do you find reading painful to begin with? There’s a website that’s helped millions of people overcome problems reading. I’ve gone ahead and thrown a link up to a website where you might find help: http://www.hookedonphonics.com
Of course maybe you mean to imply that the writer is a professional of great skill, and that his writing was so vivid and in-the-moment, that you felt like you were there. You experienced the physical pain of flames licking at the soles of your feet, and the mental anguish of knowing you might lose all your worldly possessions. In which case, sorry for the hooked on phonics thing.
By the way, are you a professional lit. critic? Because your review was painful to read.
Hell of a story, Goodman!
I hope you bought the paper boy a beer.
Glad everyone made it out OK. The Rick Springfield Autograph would survive the fire. If the sword was worth the money it would survive the fire. As for the wife and family pets, it’s everyone for themselves. With only a few minutes to make key decisions, let’s make sure we do things in the right order and take care of the most important matters.
First we hedge our bets. Get all the guitars to safety. If your family is panicking, forsake them. You can’t let them endanger the thing that you’ve held in your arms and touched delicately for far more hours than you will ever touch anyone or anything else. If your family responds more calmly, utilize that calm and organize them (pets included) to run your instruments out in shifts. Probably best to have your family stay with the guitars, wherever they are, for their safety, the guitars’I mean.
Now, with everything important to you safe from harm with the remaining minutes you’re gonna want to check your insurance policy. Does it cover fires? Does it pay a depreciated amount for lost items, or replacement cost? Are there limits on particular categories of goods like art or electronic equipment? If you’ve got a good policy, you’re probably gonna wanna get your stuff, especially things that burn in totality, and get those things as close to the fire as possible. You’re looking for maximum payout, so all those designer labels and all those elaborate handbags get tossed in first. Next, the art work you spoke of, you know, like your previously undeclared signed copy of the Mona Lisa and your fabriche egg, use it along with your old RCA…I mean plasma screen TV as a firebreak or as tender to feed the fire away from your house. Most importantly, burn the file cabinet or whatever has all the handwritten receipts for your oil paintings and antique home furnishings that are burning beyond recognition.
As for your house, a structure fire would likely be a disaster, because the fire would likely be extinguished before it burned the house to a nice easy reportable total loss and big check. With only a partial burn you’d have a headache with insurance, estimates, and repair bills.
When all is said and done, it’s a phenomenal spring cleaning. You get rid of clutter. The fire converts time wasting family-killing devices like the evil TV into fresh and clean insurance cash and a second chance, a second chance to spend you money wisely, on soul-purifying, consciousness-raising artifacts like more guitars.
Seriously, I lost everything in a fire in 1994. Not a fun experience. Glad you woke up when you did. And I’m not kidding if you have time in a fire, grab the guitar, because you’re gonna need something to do while you spend months waiting for insurance companies to stop accusing you of lying because you can’t produce receipts for your cast iron cookware.