Life By Kristen

Not How I Thought My Sunday Would Go

Sunday afternoon, the commercial building next door to my house was demolished by a big fire. Thankfully, we and the house are safe. We’ve got some smoke damage ( the professional cleaning people are currently in my attic and basement where the smoke was the worst), some charred grass and lots of soot/ash on the exterior, but no major damage. We are extremely lucky and so grateful to the firefighters from our town and surrounding areas who worked hard for hours to contain the five-alarm fire.

(the white house is mine)

If you’ve had a fire in your home, my heart goes out to you because the anxiety and fear we felt on Sunday evening and into Monday morning was heartwrenching and terrifying. The fire broke out about 5ish on Sunday, just as we were about to sit down to eat. I was so sure it was a small fire they would have under control shortly that when the police told us to leave the house, I left our dinner on the table since I thought we’d be right back. 4 hours later, they let us come into the house for 5 minutes to grab clothes as the house was too smoky to stay in Sunday night.

We slept at a family friend’s house on Sunday night that was only a street away from the house so we could be close in case things changed. When we left the corner near the house, the fire was mostly contained and they were bringing in some heavy machinery to get to the heart of the blaze. The building is a total loss and the building owner, plus 3 tenants, lost everything.

Now, as we deal with the cleaning and airing out, I never thought I’d be so thankful for smoke damage. The thought of what could have been makes me sick to my stomach. As we stood on the corner watching the blaze get bigger and the winds shifting, Q and I prayed for the safety of our house, but we knew that it was only stuff inside and that we were safe and together. I’m thankful we were home and that we were able to return to our home just a day later. There are a few scorched lawn and dried leaf areas on our property– if the wind changed, our house likely would have had much worse damage. So while the stress of insurance claims and washing almost everything in the house is frustrating, we’re counting our blessings and thanking our guardian angels and firefighters for the safety of us and the house.