Fire Damage

First the story, then the pictures.

We had a house fire at 3 in the morning December 4th. We were home, asleep, and I was woken up by what sounded like someone moving a lot of papers around really loudly in the kitchen. (we didn't have smoke alarms) After listening for a few seconds and hearing a few small pops I realized what was really going on and kicked (almost literally) Curtis out of bed saying we had to get out. Curtis checked the hall and was met by a wall of cold smoke, so we grabbed the baby (he was in our room), a couple of blankets and Curtis' cell phone and headed to the kids' room. We couldn't see the fire through the smoke, so we didn't know how far it had spread. Once in the kids' room we tried calling to Koda to join us (he was still in our room), but he was too scared to come. Curtis called 911 and opened a window after giving up on Koda and shutting the door. I jumped out and Curtis passed the kids to me, then jumped out himself.

We then carried the kids (I grabbed my slippers but no one else had shoes) to the back patio by the shop. Curtis was still talking to 911. We could see the fire through the kitchen window and it looked pretty big. We had known basically immediately what had started the fire - although we were completely surprised it had actually spontaneously combusted. We also knew there were two gas lines in the kitchen, one only a few feet away from where the fire started. That is why we had to give up on Koda - we didn't know when the house was going to blow up and we had to get out. Plus that smoke is toxic to breathe! We now kinda regret that, because the house never did blow up! If we had known that, we would have gotten the kids out, went back for Koda (or broken a window or something) and dragged him out.

Anyway, as we watched random things blow up and pop in the kitchen, 911 said that a cop should be there by then and was walking around the house. We didn't see anyone, so we walked out front. Still no one, and they said the first fire truck had also arrived, so they checked the address again. Wrong house! They were a quarter mile west of us! At that point we were cold so we went into the garage (detached), and got in the truck, started it and moved to across the street so we weren't in the way and could watch.

The firefighters arrived and took what seemed like forever hooking up a hose putting the fire out. They must have been bored that night because 4 different cities sent trucks. The first thing they asked us was if we had put the fire out ourselves, because they couldn't see it through the windows! Most of the windows were totally covered in greasy smoke. They asked about gas lines and decided turning those off was top priority - we agreed. We gave them the house keys, since all the doors were locked. They kicked in the back door to get in - maybe that's protocol. We told them about Koda. They asked what breed he was and how big he was. Maybe we should have lied. They decided to wait for him to become incapacitated by the smoke before rescuing him - for their safety. They did finally get him out and had to put him on oxygen for a while for severe smoke inhalation. By the time they brought him to us we thought for sure he had died. Also by that time every one of them had fallen in love with him. He's a sweet dog! He had to be nursed back to health (thanks Krysta and Jay!) for a few months. Now he seems back to normal.

It was quite the adventure. The kitchen was charred, the whole upstairs was damaged pretty badly by smoke and the downstairs was flooded (with smokey water) by the firfighters. The smoke was so caustic that most metal things rusted, all plastic things were pitted (if they didn't melt), most cloth changed colors and even became brittle. Glass was usually okay, unless it broke from the heat or things hitting in to it, although it was pretty hard to clean the smoke off it. Everything was covered in greasy, hard-to-clean, black smoke. We have had to replace pretty much everything we owned that was in our upstairs. A crew gutted the upstairs. After that, they refinished everything (yay, new appliances and carpet!), cleaned the downstairs and we got to move back in. It took about 6 months.

In between then we moved around a little. We went to Curtis' parents' house directly after the fire and finished the night and most of the next day there. We had basically nothing that belonged to us.

The next two nights we spent at Kevin and Lindsey Brown's house in Layton. We needed a few things immediately, so we started collecting clothing and such there.

Another of our friends had a vacant house in our ward and during the time we were at the Brown's the ward tidied it up and stocked it with a bunch of supplies for us, so we moved there next and stayed for 2 weeks. Koda couldn't stay there with us so Krysta and Jay kept him for us during that time. We also had to go to Curtis' parents' to do our laundry - which we were steadily getting more of. By the time we moved out of there we actually had to get a few moving boxes.

Another ward member also had a vacant house (not in the ward this time). It had a lot of stuff that had to be cleared out, so it wasn't ready immediately. It wasn't as close as the other, but they weren't trying to sell it yet (like the one we were in) and we could have Koda there, so we moved again. That's where we stayed until we were finally able to move back home again. That's also where we really started replacing our lost items. We didn't replace any furniture until we moved home, instead we just relied on borrowed stuff from others. But we still had a lot to pack and move by the time we left there!

Back to the fire. The firefighters estimated that it had probably only been burning for 10-15 minutes when I was woken up by it - the the whole upstairs was filled down to below waist level with smoke - luckily our bedroom doors were shut. That was one of our many blessings - we NEVER shut our doors, but that night we did. The firefighters were completely shocked that we had woken up and gotten out. They said that if you breathe that smoke while you're sleeping, it'll put you in a deeper sleep and you'll never wake up.

Now, on to the pictures you've all REALLY been waiting for.

The "toy" room, although, because we were refinishing the wood floor most of the toys were downstairs and our dining/front room stuff was in here. It's so dark because everything is coated in black soot.

After we started cleaning the house out. You can see how the smoke rusted the stove. It rusted most everything metal in the house.

The piano and the back door that the firemen kicked in (so they had to board it up to secure it). The piano doesn't look too bad in this picture, but the cost to clean it up and restore it was more than the cost of a new piano. That was actually one of our many blessings from this fire.

The entry and footlockers and shelves I talked about. You can also see the stairs a little. Wherever stuff was sitting looks fairly clean still - it's actually not, just cleaner than elsewhere.

All the windows had such a thick film of smoke on them that it was always dark in the house unless they brought in a light. It's the middle of the day outside in this picture.

Hall from toy room to kitchen.

Cabinet in that hall. It had been shut. Look, there's our fire extinguisher. Helpful. Next time I think we'll keep one in our bedroom too.

The stairs down. They likely weren't black much at all until the firefighters went downstairs. Too bad the white carpet downstairs cleaned up so well - we could have gotten ALL new carpet!

The kitchen. The paint peeled off the upper cabinets. The lower ones are dirtier than they look.

During the clean-up process. Those were some items found in the kitchen they thought they could clean and save. They were mostly right.

Where the fire started. The firefighters showed us how they can tell where it started. You can sort of see a black "v" shape under the cabinet - with grey in the center and almost clean wall outside of it. The fire started at the base of the v. Kinda cool. Right where the red light is sitting we found a small motor on the floor and some wires coiled kind of around it. That was all that was left of our shop vac. There had also been two garbage cans, a whicker basket full of wood block letters and a big plastic bucket full of painting supplies under that counter, among other small things.

The holes in the ceiling the firefighters made to check if the fire had spread to the attic. It hadn't, thanks to our asbestos popcorn ceilings.

The small counter again. It melted the handles off the cabinet above the counter. On top of the counter we had a lot of paperwork, a couple of decorations and my laptop. You can kind of see the remains of my laptop just left of the pink insulation. It's the sort-of white, sort-of rectangle thing.

Here's where the "people we like" thing was hanging. The little hanging ornaments charred and left marks on the wall. The plaque part was still mostly there.

 Dining room. It was the middle of the day. Our buffalo picture is on the wall. You can't really see it.

Front room, looking toward the bedrooms. We hadn't finished painting the trim work yet.

Now with some better lighting, and after we started the clean up. The bagged piles are stuff to clean and keep. This room was empty before so it was a great place to gather stuff.

The mirror is still up above the fireplace. Everywhere there was a picture on the wall you can still tell.

The hallway to our bedrooms. The walls were all coated in even charcoal black smoke (like between the doors) until the firefighters came in and sprayed everything down, then it went all mottled. You can see where they sprayed the walls.

Our bedroom. Not as bad as the rest of the upstairs. We had our door shut until we left, then left it open hoping Koda would come. The smoke created really crazy cobwebs all across the ceilings.

During clean-up. You can see one of the curtains Koda ripped down trying to get out.

My closet. You can see the old front door and window in the back. We took those out when we redid the upstairs.

We thought the smoke hadn't done too much in our closets (they were closed and had lots of clothes in them). This was Curtis' closet, after we took all the clothes out. That smoke got everywhere. Even in some of the clothes we cleaned and kept we found lines and patches of discoloration that the smoke had gotten to.

Now the surreal part. Walking through a charred, very black house into the kids' room.

Almost all it needed was cleaning. You can't tell, but there was some smoke that got in and blackened the walls a little. What blessed us was the firefighters and the ceiling. The disaster restoration crew was required to check the ceilings for asbestos. Once they found that they had it they had to rip ALL of our popcorn ceilings down - even this one! That process messed up the paint on the walls just enough that it was cheaper to repaint than touch-up the old job.

And the firefighters helped out with the carpet. So even though this room was basically protected from everything by us shutting the door behind us it still got totally redone.

And the bathroom.

 It actually got hot enough in here to make the glue show through the new shower surround we had just put up.

The heat never got too far past the kitchen (although the thermostat in the hallway melted down the wall). It was mostly smoke damage that hurt everything. Downstairs was perfect until the firefighters hosed everything down. The water damage there made it so we got a new ceiling in the basement and new padding under the carpet. It also ruined the wallpaper in the bathroom down there.

We took the young women and young men through during activities a couple times. It felt like a really creepy haunted house (not the "Frightmares" variety) because of how dark and black it all was and with all the cobwebs the smoke had made and burnt items laying about. It was crazy.

It was very annoying to be out of our house for so long and we're still replacing some of our belongings. But overall it was an immense blessing in our lives and we were blessed quite a bit even when the fire was happening. I was woken up by the fire. Davis slept so well that night that I wasn't tired. (In fact, if Davis had gotten up when he normally did, I would have been up feeding him when the fire started and would have been able to get the fire extinguisher and put it out. We wouldn't have gotten a "new" house!) We shut our doors, which we never do. I left my laptop in the kitchen, which I don't usually do. (that sounds like a bad thing, but Curtis' is the one with pictures on it - which are also backed up downstairs, and my computer was really acting up - we thought we might have to replace it soon) We didn't have any fire alarms (that also sounds like a bad thing, and normally it should be), so the fire was able to do enough damage that the whole upstairs needed to be redone. The asbestos in the ceiling stopped the fire from spreading into the attic and making the ceiling fall down on us. And the linoleum in our kitchen had asbestos in it too, so the fire never spread very far out in the kitchen, and never got to the gas lines.

We had a few appliances (all in the kitchen) that were well past their "useful life" and were going to give out any day. The stovetop and wall oven were original (1940's) and the fridge was making weird noises. We were required to have smoke detectors installed throughout the house, hardwired to the electrical lines, not just battery-powered, so now we have them! (although, I still sometimes wish we didn't have them, like when I burn bacon and they all go off) Most of my clothes had been through three pregnancies and three spitting up babies - they were stained, stretched, worn and tired. I don't think I even owned a pair of jeans that didn't have a hole in the knee. We had planned on having to spend a bunch of money on new clothes for me as soon as I had lost my baby weight. What we didn't know was where that money was going to come from. We had also been wanting to update the whole house, but had had to do it really slowly, one room at a time, because of money constraints. We had wanted to replace the old windows on the house too. We had even wanted to change up the walls a little bit, but thought we'd likely have to build our own house some day to realize those dreams. (wait till you see our new bathroom) And between our own money and the replacement money we got we were able to upgrade quite a few things in the house and now we LOVE it here and may never move again!

So as you can see, it was a blessing in disguise. (and I'm sure I've forgotten a few of the blessings) Just not a very fun one to go through at the time. Next I'll show you the demolition and redo of the house.