House Fire- Temp. accommodations, Clean up & contents Repair

My mom & sisters'

house caught fire last night.

They woke this morning around 5am to find the basement full of dark smoke. It appears the electrical for the well caught fire and created heavy smoke. The fire department was quick to respond and thankfully prevented the flames from getting out of control. Unfortunately, the process of putting out the fire caused significant damage to all of the contents in the basement.

Because the Insurance Risk Classification system uses postal codes to assign risk categories she was grouped together with an area of residents that had an emergency declared by the township for spring flooding at a lake. Her premium tripled and the only way to bring the payment down was to increase the deductible to the maximum of $20,000. In a total loss situation this wouldn't have been an issue, but with the total damages coming to an amount under the $20,000 threshold they are left without any assistance.

Unfortunately, being out of town there werent any spectators taking photos of the fire crew.

This is what happened.

Yesterday morning, around 5am, she woke up to the smell of smoke, then I got a second whif of smoke so I went to the living room to explore. There was a small stream of smoke floating in the air. I noticed smoke coming out from underneath the basement door into the kitchen. Sara's room is in the basement.

When I opened the door the basement I was met with a wall of solid smoke. I ran into it screaming for Sara. Thank God her door had been closed. She was conscious and okay.

We got to work gathering up animals and getting everyone outside to safety.

Emma had her room door closed so, thankfully, she avoided a lot of the smoke.

Sara and I have been in hospital with carbon monoxide poisoning. Sara is still in the hospital on Oxygen. We all have irritated eyes and throats but are thankful that no loves were lost.

Thankfully the fire department was very quick to answer our early morning alarm and get the fire under control. The process of doing that left a lot of water damage and the smell of the smoke and toxins is an irritant for breathing.

The Fire Chief spoke to Sara about the first hand knowledge that she noe has anout fire safety. Never panic and open all the basement windows to let the smoke out. She could have caused a backdraft that would have sucked her in.