Week 15 (April 8th -14th ): Fire

From Amy Johnson Crow - Fire played a crucial role in our ancestors's lives, whether it was providing heat for homes and cooking or providing power for forges and engines. Of course, fire can also be destructive, both on a personal level or in our research (such a record loss in a courthouse fire). Think, too, about place names that make you think of fire.

As far as I am aware, I don’t know of any firefighters in my family, so writing about them isn’t an option. Nor do I have any names linked to “Fire”. So, this week’s theme of “fire” is being linked to myself and my ex-husband Peter and our 3 children.

On the 17^th November 2011, our cooker caught “fire”, it wasn’t even turned on (and was only 8months old). At the time I was asleep on the sofa, the older two children were at school, Peter was watching tv and the toddler was playing with his toys. The smoke alarm went off, Peter went to investigate and was greeted with smoke filling the kitchen and flames rising up from the cooker (he went in and opened the window to let smoke out). He woke me up, I grabbed the child and my phone, he put the dogs in the garden and we left the house. I ran next door and promptly dumped my son on her with “my house is on “Fire” have the baby”. I then rang the “fire” brigade who told me a fire engine was on the way.

It seemed like forever for them to arrive, and there was nothing I could do but watch the smoke billowing out of the kitchen window and worry about the state of my house and losing everything. When they did arrive, there was 2 tenders sent. Most of the street had come out to see what was going on. A few of the younger females were moaning as not a single fireman was under age 40years! This included my neighbour that had my son.

They put the “fire” out, opened all doors and windows, which in turn meant the dogs ran off down the street to which 1 of the fireman was chasing them. (This was quite entertaining to watch).

The cooker was dragged outside and left in the front garden (right), smoking and in a burnt way. In the process of them dragging it outside they ripped up my kitchen floor. They rang through to their “fire” investigations team to come and collect it for investigation due to its age and the fact it wasn’t switched on.

Luckily for us, the “fire” stayed contained in the cooker and the area around it. The wall was scorched behind the cooker and the edges of the worktop and my spice rack were singed (see below). The smoke had gone right through the house and caused more damage than the actual “fire” did. There was smoke “dust” everywhere.

Obviously, with the house in the state it was with smoke everywhere we couldn’t stay there, so the insurance company put us into a local hotel. We managed to get the cats in a cattery and the breeder of our dogs agreed to take them for us. We took the animals where they needed to go and in the 35-40mins we were gone, the burnt-out cooker was “stolen” from the front garden. We think it was the local Gypsies for scrap metal. When the “fire” brigade came to collect it, they were shocked that it had been stolen.

We spent nearly 4 weeks in the hotel whilst our house was deep cleaned and fully re-decorated and repaired throughout. The insurance paid for it all to be done, and because of the slight damage to the worktop edges they were fully replaced and the kitchen was really lovely (see image below). When the hotel staff realised, we were there due to a “fire” and not just on a holiday, they changed the way they were with us – nothing was too much of a problem, they let the kids help decorate the Christmas tree in the entrance, they put chocolates on it for them. They allowed them to plug the wii into the tv, they accepted the room being a mess and toys everywhere, they provided extra food during the day for me and Peter (even though it wasn’t on the budget and didn’t charge us). They offered to do our laundry for us (but I declined as didn’t want random people touching my undies – my Nan did it for us.) They really were good to us.

We managed to get home just before Christmas, of which I’m glad as I didn’t want to spend it in the hotel, even though they would have looked after us very well.

The only good thing I can say about the “fire” was that I got a lovely brand new kitchen out of it. I am glad that my Parents told me to always make sure I had home insurance. If I hadn’t, I have no idea of how we would have covered the costs of it all. From the animals to the hotel and all of the work on the house and replacing things like food in the kitchen it came to just over £12k thousand pounds! Not the sort of money I have lying around.

We never did find out the cause of the cooker catching “fire” due to it being stolen, but the “fire” brigade did report the make and model to the relevant people and safety checks were issued to them.

We were very lucky in the fact it was only the kitchen that had “fire” damage and we only lost the items from that room, the rest was just smoke damage. It could have been so much worse. I am 99% certain my Mum (dead) was watching over us and made sure we didn’t lose everything.