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I'm on Fire
BY RICHARD JAEGGI
"Dad, do you smell
smoke?"
I was napping in my Lazyboy, nursing a hangover from my fiftieth
birthday celebration the night before. "Um, yeah, I think
so," I replied as I tried to clear the cobwebs in my
brain. There was the faint odor of smoke, but not the usual
protein smell of bug-roasting-in-halogen-lamp. "My computer
just shut off," explained my 17-year-old son. We went
down to the basement to the electrical panel. Sure enough
one of the breakers was showing orange. I flipped the switch
but it wouldn’t stay flipped.
Going back upstairs we followed our noses to the back of
the house. Gray smoke was rising menacingly outside the window.
At this point everything began to happen very quickly. "Everyone
out of the house," I yelled as I raced down the stairs,
grabbed the fire extinguisher, and flipped the main breaker.
"Call the fire department." As soon as I spoke I
realized that our cordless phone was useless without electricity.
"Doh!"
When I arrived in the backyard the smoke, darker now, was
pouring out the seams of the vinyl siding. Several neighbors
had gathered. One called the fired department while another
hooked up his garden hose. A ladder was found and soon I was
on the roof of the rear addition doing my best to quench the
growing flames with the hose in my right hand while holding
up poorly tied purple coolie pants with my left hand. (Note
to self: take that extra minute to get fully dressed before
going out to fight fires.) The fire had broken through the
vinyl and was now billowing thick, black smoke as it climbed
up the wall into the roof. It seemed like forever before I
heard the sirens but it was probably only a matter of minutes
before the firefighters arrived. Preparing to relinquish my
post on the roof I was simultaneously surprised, bemused and
honored when a firefighter told me to stay put and keep hosing
the smoke-belching wall while they got their equipment ready.
The firefighters hooked up their equipment and proceeded
to put out the fire. My neighbors and I watched in disbelief
as the firefighters ran their hoses through the house, cut
open the roof with their chain saws, and hacked the walls
with their axes. In an hour and a half it was all over. The
fire chief was very courteous. He walked me through the house
and showed me the bathroom vent fan that caused the fire.
The acrid smell of smoke permeated the whole house. The floor
was covered with a half inch of water. Before they left, the
firemen covered the holes in the roof with plastic and left
us a booklet called After the Fire.
Two weeks have passed but it seems much longer. Realizations
and emotions wash over us like succeeding waves in the ocean.
The first is plain shock. Fires happen to other people. Our
second emotion was drop-to-your-knees gratitude. Nobody was
hurt. What if it happened at night while we were all asleep?
Nothing was lost that could not be rebuilt or replaced. We
were grateful to the firemen and women who came so quickly
and knew just what to do. We were grateful for our friends
and neighbors who rallied to our aid even quicker than the
fire department. Several neighbors had called 911, another
helped us put out the first flames with his garden hose. (Note
to self: replace that misting nozzle on our hose with a powerful
directional nozzle.) The neighbors across the street let us
spend the night in their tent trailer. Other neighbors whom
we didn’t even know came by with food and water and encouragement.
The spirit of community compassion is alive and well in America.
We learned a lot about the insurance industry and the legion
of companies that sub contract their services. There were
fire-chasers to be sure, like the carpentry firm that was
so quick to contract the job but so slow to actually close
the roof. Yet on the whole everyone was thoughtful and professional;
unlike our health insurance provider, our catastrophic insurance
company almost seemed cheerful to pay out our damage claims.
They not only covered our loss but our living our expenses
while we put life and home back in order. We thought about
the many places in the world where there is no insurance adjuster
to write checks for the tragic ones whose houses gets bombed
or bulldozed.
We learned the importance of home, that predictable place
in an unpredictable world that we take for granted. We learned
something about ourselves as a family and our ability to keep
our balance under stress. We surprised even ourselves to discover
that all that stuff that clutters our lives, the stuff that
we claim is unimportant, really is unimportant. Most of all
we learned that if your 30-year-old bathroom fan starts to
make really loud noises you should replace it before going
to the next party.
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