So... back in January {because I suck at blogging lately} we had a small house fire. I was home with the kids for some reason, like teacher prep day or something like that. I'd had kind of a bummer morning the day before after finding out something from a friend about another friend so I wasn't in the mood to do anything except lounge around in my pajamas. Without a bra. Or makeup. That's important for later in the story.
When I finally did decide to get out of bed, feed my children, and be ultra productive, I could smell something. Like the weird dusty burning smell that a new furnace filter has when the heat kicks on. I ignored it for awhile, thinking it must be a new furnace filter. But it kept getting stronger and stronger. Even the kids were starting to complain that something stunk.
I started wandering around the house sniffing all the rooms trying to figure out where the smell was coming from. But I wasn't too worried. After all a 100+ year old house makes funny noises and smells all the time.
When I finally concluded it had to be in the T.V. room and started to walk back that way, I heard Pearl screaming, "I see smoke!" And by screaming I mean full out panic mode screaming! Granted, my own pulse was picking up a little speed because I couldn't figure out where in the heck that burning smell was coming from.
Then I saw it.
A puff of black smoke. A perfect little mushroom cloud coming out of the electrical outlet on the floor. Followed by a definite sizzle and then the power going out. {I should clarify that our house has most of its outlets in the floor but these outlets stick up out of the floor in these weird above ground boxes, not flush with the floor like newer homes.}
Now it was time to panic. I called our local fire department as I was frantically trying to get the kids' shoes on to send them over to the neighbors. I mean, normal people are still in their pajamas with no shoes on at 11 a.m. right?
I figured calling the fire department was the easiest thing to do because one, they are about a block away, and two, I couldn't actually see any flames. I just wanted them to come check things out, especially in the crawl space. Apparently you should just call 9-1-1 because the dispatcher who answered FREAKED out! As soon as I described what was going on, she started yelling at me to hang up immediately and call 9-1-1. Sheesh! So I called 9-1-1, {while also throwing on a pair of jeans... no time for a bra because it only took the fire department about 30 seconds to get here} explained what was going on, and then was transferred right back to the lady at the fire department who had told me to cal 9-1-1. Ironic.
Luckily our house is easy to identify. Not only is it located on a fairly major street in our city, but we do have a uniquely identifying sign hanging on our fence during the holidays. I simply said, "We're the ditto house" and they knew exactly where to go. In fact, that was the first thing the fire department asked me when I got there, "Hey are you the ditto house?"
I swear the entire emergency response team for our city showed up! Apparently they didn't have anything else to do. We had two fire engines, a police car, and an EMT truck. Those fire fighters hopped out of their trucks and I thought to myself, really? Really? Does it come with the job that all fire fighters must be 6' tall, muscular build, and very attractive? I mean, I wasn't wearing a bra! Or makeup! And still had bed head and bad breathe because I hadn't brushed my teeth yet. The dog is barking and howling with the sirens. And the kids ran over to the neighbors screaming {Pearl was so panicked she left Cole on the front porch while I was still on the phone with 9-1-1.} Awesome.
When they walked in the house they commented that yep, it smelled like a fire. I showed them the outlet that the smoke had come out of. They popped the box off, ripped back the carpet, and found a completely fried set of wires. The burning smell had been coming from the carpet. It was smoldering all around the outlet box. I got a stern lecture about our curtains hanging down near the outlets and a bit of a lecture/recommendation/questioning about how old the wiring in our house was. They said we were really lucky sparks didn't start flying because it could have caught the curtains or carpet on fire really easily. I half-jokingly said my husband was going to be very disappointed it didn't start an actual fire so we could upgrade. {Jeff was serious about wanting the house to burn down when I called to tell him the news.}
They walked around the rest of the house to check the outlets and electrical panel out in the garage, all while commenting how cool our house was. Um. Yeah. Real cool. My house built in 1910 just caught on fire, costing us potentially THOUSANDS of dollars to fix. We were given a clean bill of health, told to call an electrician to fix the outlets and make sure the panel didn't fry when the outlet popped and tripped the breakers, and move the curtains. Fire firelighters really don't like curtains.
I called Jeff as they were leaving and said something like, um so we just had a house fire. I'm not sure if he thought I was playing a joke on him or if it was just such a shock to hear house fire but I had to repeat myself several times that yes, we had a real house fire. Jeff came zipping home to see the damage. He spent all afternoon {seriously, the next 3-4 hours} fixing the outlet and crawling in and out of our crawl space. Because of course NOTHING is an easy fix when you have an old house. The electrical outlets you can buy in the stores are not designed for old homes. So we had to cut a small hole in the floor beam to get everything to fit. Luckily the panel flipped back on, we had full power again, and Jeff was able to fix everything.
We Febreezed the heck out of our house too.
And said a silent prayer of thanks that we were all safe.
