My last blog post was the day before our house burned down so I think that I have a good excuse for not blogging over the last two months. We're back on top of things now, but for a few weeks, living out of a hotel room and having everything, EVERYTHING smell like smoke, things were rather miserable and I'll admit that I thought about getting on a plane and going home more than once or twice.
The help and kindness of our new US friends has really helped us to get through this. From day one, we were kept well fed with delicious hot meals, the kids were entertained with toys and games, and there was no shortage of help with babysitting when we needed to go house hunting or sift through the ruins of our old house. We are so grateful for all of this.
House fires are traumatic, obviously, whenever they happen but they are also surreal. When the smoke detector went off at 2am, I wasn't particularly alarmed, in fact all I did was wake Jack up and tell him to go and deal with it. I was more alarmed when, after walking to the other side of the house, Jack yelled for me to get the kids out of the house,
now.
They were fast asleep and it wasn't too much effort to bundle them out of the house and into the car. Once the kids were safe, and I decided to go back inside and get my phone, handbag and maybe our passports, that's when things got scary. I walked in the front door and I couldn't see and I couldn't breathe. I took a deep breath, held it and tried to make my way to where my bag and phone were but quickly turned back - I didn't need my bag enough to be in a smoke filled house, I needed to be with the kids.
There were no flames at this point, just an awful of smoke, everywhere. Obviously the house was full of it but it seemed as though the entire street was in a cloud of smoke too. We didn't actually see the fire until later when the firemen hacked open our roof with an axe.
Speaking of firemen, they got to our house so fast. While it is hard to remember exact timings, it seems now that no more than five minutes passed from when we called 911, until our entire street was filled with firemen and police. At the height of the effort, we had 4 fire trucks from two separate departments working on our little house.
It took four hours to put out the fire.
So, what did we learn?
Firstly, fire is silent and smoke detectors really do save lives. Seriously, do you have then in your house yet? If you don't then what is the matter with you? If our house did not have smoke detectors, then we would have all slept soundly while a fire raged overhead in our roof. We would have slept soundly right up until the moment that we all suffocated from the smoke, or worse.
Second, not only is it silent, but it is fast. In no more than five minutes, our house went from having the same amount of smoke in it that you would get from burning toast, to being filled with smoke so thick it was both blinding and suffocating. Terrifying.
Third, a big, messy pile of soggy, stinky stuff is oh so much better than no stuff. When you are standing freezing on the street in your (very daggy, I might add) pajamas with no shoes watching flames shooting out of your roof, you really do think that you have lost everything. Jack and I certainly did, and we were beginning to some to terms with the fact when a fireman came out of the house carrying my phone and handbag. Then another fireman came out with my iPod! Later, more firemen came out with shoes, sweaters and jeans. I never knew, and it never occurred to me, that firemen would put such effort into protecting people's possessions, but they do and I for one am incredibly grateful for it. We seriously thought that we had lost everything, and because of their hard work, we actually lost very little.
Later in the morning, one of the firemen visited us at the house. He was one of the guys responsible for trying to keep our stuff safe. Basically, they pile everything into the middle of the room, and put a plastic sheet on it. Anyway, this lovely fireman asked if he could take me through the house and show me where he had put some of our things. As we were walking me through the charred remains and dripping mess, I was amazed and totally overcome with the care and attention that these people had shown in protecting our belongings. I was crying at this point and this poor guy kept apologizing to me that he wasn't able to more. I had to explain that I was actually crying big, happy, gratitude filled tears. Firemen are awesome.
Four, we were lucky. Being woken at 2am in the morning to a burning house doesn't sound lucky, but let's just put things in context shall we? What about those people in Margaret River who lost absolutely everything in the recent fires? Or the unimaginable tragedy of the house fire in Queensland on Boxing Day that killed a mother and her three young daughters? That we got out without anyone being hurt was lucky enough. The fact that we were insured, had a two inch thick, solid wood ceiling to contain the fire and firemen willing put the effort into protecting our stuff mean that as far as house fire victims go, I think we were blessed.
So there it is, my reason for not blogging in the last two months. In addition to dealing with the aftermath of the fire however, we have actually managed to fit some living in, and I will try to keep a steady stream of blog posts coming, filling you in on the last few months.
