Fire

Saturday was an interesting day for us.  I was sure that it was going to be a busy one as Joe had work to do at his parent's house, Noah had a birthday party to attend and Jonah was in the middle of the flu.  The plan was for Joe to go to work, Mom to keep Jonah at her house, and me to take Noah and Micah to the bowling party.  Unfortunately (or so we thought at the time) the birthday boy got sick and the party was cancelled.  That meant Noah went to work with Joe and I planned to stay home in my pajamas to take care of the two little ones.

Just after lunch I was getting ready to put the little ones down for a nap when I saw heavy smoke out the back window.  At first I did not think much of it since I had a fire going in the fireplace and the wind was blowing pretty strong.  Then I realized that no matter how strong the wind was blowing, my little fireplace was not even capable of putting out that amount of smoke. 

 I went to the side door and what I saw nearly took my breath away.  The next door neighbor (privacy fence side) was burning trash in her back yard and the fire had gotten away from her.  It was barreling across the field straight back to our old house and shop.  I first called Joe to tell him to come home so he could help me get it out.  My next call was to my Mom to help me with the babies while I fought the fire. 

 I ran out the door (neglecting to put on shoes or a bra), threw the kids in the van and sped down the dirt road back to the shop to try and head the fire off with the water hose.  By the time I had gotten to the shop the wind had picked up and the fire was crossing the fence line to the front yard of our old home.  We now use that home for storage and part of Joe's shop.  I turned on the shop water hose but the fire was too hot for me to get to the front of the old house to use that hose.  (Remember that I was barefoot!)

 Realizing that there was no way that I could put this fire out myself I tried calling 911 while I started cranking up the big trucks to move them out of harms way.  My crazy phone decided at that moment to act up.  Since I could not use the keypad I tried using voice recognition to dial 911.  My phone has a hard time recognizing the numbers I say even when my voice is not laced with panic, so it really had a hard time understanding me while I was screaming numbers at the top of my lungs.  Finally the phone started ringing so I thought it had gotten through.  It rang a couple of times and then a woman's voice said, "Walterboro Pizza Hut, May I help you?"  At that point I wanted to throw my phone into the fire.  I needed a fire truck, not a pizza!

By this time the flames were already on the front porch of the old house and I decided that it was not worth risking my life or the lives of my babies (who were still sitting in my van) so I sped back up the road to the house to remove them from danger and to call 911 on our home phone.

 On the way up the drive I heard sirens coming and then I saw Joe pull into the drive.  I quickly filled him in and he and Noah headed back to the shop so Joe could try and slow the progression of the fire.  Then the wind shifted and the fire started coming across the field in the direction of our current home.  I saw the fire engine but it pulled into my neighbor's yard instead of mine. (My guess is that she is the one that called 911)

 Our firefighters are all a volunteer force so I grew up with most of them.  I drove over and told them they need to get to my yard because the old house was already on fire.  The second truck pulled into my yard, but stopped at the corner of our current house because the fire was threatening to jump the drive and catch our privacy fence on fire.

 The smoke was so thick that they could not even see that we had structures (the old house and the shop) in the back of the property that were already in danger too.  I finally got their attention (imagine me screaming and jumping up and down, bare feet, wearing my pajamas, and looking like I hadn't had sleep or a shower in three days...I did have a kid with the flu) and they realized what I was talking about.  They headed back to the shop to find that Joe was making a valiant effort, but a garden hose is not exactly fire fighting material.  My Mom showed up at that point and she stayed with the boys while I ran inside to find a bra and some shoes!

The firefighters helped Joe knock the rest of the flames down and we all assessed the damage.  Many of them said that they had never seen a mobile home get that close to burning and not be totally destroyed.  The fire charred the front porch, broke out the front windows, destroyed the front door, warped the metal siding, and melted the vinyl underpinning.  Inside the house you can see around the door and window where the flames literally licked the inside of the house but save for a little smoke, nothing else inside was damaged.

After the fire was out and I thought things were calming down, one of the firefighters called me over and said that he was going to have to call an ambulance.  I looked over to find Joe being led away with a firefighter on each side to a truck with medical supplies on board.  We figured it was best for the boys to not be there when the ambulance arrived, so Grammy and Pa took the boys home to their house and I stayed with Joe while they treated him for smoke inhalation. After resting for a while with the oxygen, he felt much better and we were able to send the ambulance away empty.

It could have been so much worse.  So we lost our front porch, it can always be rebuilt.  None of us were seriously injured.  Although the fire came within feet of the shop, it did not touch it.  If it had someone could have really gotten hurt with all of the diesel fuel, propane cylinders, and acetylene tanks we have.  Had the party not been cancelled, no one would have even been home and we could have possibly lost everything we owned.  God truly was watching out for us Saturday.