Here's a more likely WWYD scenerio:

It's 2am, your smoke detector just went off and your house is filled with smoke. Three house later the fire trucks are leaving while you to stare at the burned out shell of your totally destroyed house. Thankfully you were at least able to grab _____ on your way out.

What do you do now?
-Blast

1) Kids,
2) wallet, keys, & cell phone.

Everything else that's really important should be cooling off in a media rated safe.

My parents, the DW's parents and both of my sisters (and their families) are no more than 20 miles away. I would likely have the entire family at the scene well before it was over. The kids would probably have gone with one or two of them for a sleepover while I stayed to sort things out.

I lived through a house fire in the 80's. The door to the hallway was closed so the bedrooms survived with minimal damage, but the rest of the house was destroyed. A painting company had painted my kitchen cabinets that day and had used some kind of chemical to thin their paint that they weren't supposed to use. Xylene I think. Anyway the chemical didn't let the paint dry correctly and the pilot light from the stove caught the fumes.

I personally suffered major smoke damage and singed corneas and was not released from the hospital until about 10am the next day. By about 3pm, and using the yellow pages, I had a moving truck there and 5 guys to completely haul everything I owned, burned or not burned, to a large storage unit. burned and wet items went on one side and dry stuff from the bedrooms went on the other. They completely emptied my house on day 2 of the ordeal. They started at 3pm and by 9pm they were finished. The only thing they left behind were the kitchen appliances which were melted.

I spent the next week recuperating at a relative's house. On about the third or fourth day, my insurance guy visited the house and the storage unit and he cut me a check for expenses to tide me over. In the meantime, the fire department determined the cause of the fire and the insurance company for the painting contractor admitted fault and offered to pay for everything, replacements of clothes, spending money, furniture, plus medical plus construction, plus lost work wages. They were really good about it and I never had to sue them.

So to answer the original question, I left the fire in an ambulance with nothing (gym shorts and tshirt). It really wasn't that big a deal. It's not like I needed keys to get back in, lol. I had my credit card memorized and the moving company had no problem using the number without the actual card. Same for the storage company to rent the unit. Everyone, and I mean everyone, every company was so kind and accommodative, even the utility companies.

I'm not sure how helpful that answer is, but there it is anyway.

glasses, cell phone, G23, SureFire light on night stand, pants (wallet and keys) adjacent...shoes if time


garage is detached, zip drive with insurance, account numbers, photo inventory, and other important papers copied along with GHB in car...buy pizza for the FD

Spouse, kids, pets.
Don't sweat the small stuff. Everything else is replaceable.

Due to my ADD, I have to leave my cell, main keys and wallet by the front door, or I would set them down somewhere and never find them, fire or not.

Beside my bed I keep a very small zippered wallet with an extra set of car/house keys attached to the ring. All my phone numbers and cc/bank account numbers are in a small book inside, plus a little cash (like $20 - sometimes).

Glasses, slip-on shoes. Boost the dog out the window and I'm gone. Maybe I would think to grab some clothes, maybe not. I often roam around the backyard in my pajamas, in an emergency they may have to do for the street, too.

Cars are never in the garage, its full of 'stuff'. I have local friends and a sister to stay with, but I could camp out in the yard -- there's enough stuff in the garage to get by with.

Sue

1)Next to our beds, every family member has a full set of season appropriate clothes. I also have my EDC backpack which holds my wallet & other things.

2)My family evac folder (which I learned from you Blast) that has individual folders for each family member and one for the house, inside each are originals or copies of every important life document and business/contact cards for all our insurances, warranty's, doctors, etc. it also has a print out of important phone numbers, & a few CD/SD disks of all family photos and plus an annual POV video of walking through our house panning every room and highlighting important collections or items that would be reported lost to insurance.

Again, thank you Blast for that tip which you posted on a thread on ETS a few years back. The whole expanding folder is bright orange, unmissable in low light, in a convenient Bug Out location while we evac.

I actually posted how to make this folder and suggested documents on my blog earlier this week for friends going to be affected by the hurricane & right after the earthquake. I've one upped the physical folder idea by also creating a rarely used online email account and attaching all the scanned or digital items to unsent messages saved in a draft folder. Now I can access that account from any smart phone or computer around the world.

About 20 years ago a careless roofer sparked a fire in a first floor bay window roof. He had left the scene before the fire became evident but luckily a neighbor heard a funny noise, looked over at the house, saw smoke and called 911. DW, DD1 and I were all at work and DD2 and the cats all got out. A speedy response by the VFD (3 different companies were there in less than 10 minutes) and the oak beams of the Victorian-era house saved me from disaster.

I got lucky but my wife's parents house was a total loss a few years earlier. Again we were lucky because they had come to the Jersey shore with us for the weekend which saved their lives.

The moral of these two stories is that you don't always have an opportunity to grab stuff on the way out. You need to have outside resources, copies of key documents off-site, access to accounts (nowadays online access makes it easier), and insurance that covers replacement costs and inflation.

Funny stories attached to my fire. My neighbor called my wife's place of work to alert her to the fire. DW took the call in the main office, hung up and turned to her boss to tell her she had to leave because of the fire. Her boss (I'm not making this up) replied "Did you know house was on fire before you can to work?"

My wife called me and I immediately left for home making a 45 minute trip in 30 minutes. The whole time home I'm thinking, "Well, if I do get pulled over at least I can tell the trooper I AM on my way to a fire."

The local VFD did a super job of not creating more damage than the fire. My wife was upset, though, because one young firefighter broke an expensive glass globe for our hallway light as he was leaving the house. Turns out he was a former student of my wife's and she did give him that "I'm not happy" teacher look.

After the children and wife, wallet, cellphone and keys are next. If there's time after that we'll move the cars away from the house. As with NightHiker we normally have one in the garage and one in the driveway.

NightHiker pretty much nailed the rest of the day.

1) Keys/wallet/glasses/phone/shoes
2) The cat (hiding under the bed or sofa after the smoke and CO alarms went off)
3) The go bag - Something of an augmented urban BOB. Created just for emergency evacuation situations.

Well your detector should go off long before the house is filled with smoke. I guess its a matter of where one lives,but I've got 22 years on a city FD, been to 100's of PD fires. If someone is home and calls when the detector goes off,its seldom( like 90 some % IIRC) the fire becomes more then a one or two roomer where I work. When I read things like 10 minutes is a good responce time, WOW ! fire doubles in size each minute ! you don't have much of a chance from the get go. We pride ourselves on getting a line to the seat of the fire in 4 minutes from dispatch .

I guess its because I've been to a ton of PD fires with at least 20 fatals some I found and pulled out and down ladders, that I've come to realize I don't give a rats A$$ about my deer heads on the wall,photos, my guns ,knives, lap tops ,family items etc. Everyone ones comes out alive is all I care about.
Sure I have things backed up on line, copies of photos and records ins. #'s kept off site etc. and 3 or so fire proof safes ( wife works for worlds first and largest fire proof safe co.) But items matter little , very little.

I can shoot more deer,buy more guns.

Oh an and if you have a fire you need to HIRE your own adjuster, NOT just your insurance co.'s. Believe it or not they will try to pay as little as possible. Have
things cleaned not replaced and so forth. The cost of the guy you hire will be more then made up for.

Great advice, thanks! That's the sort of stuff I love about ETS, the little known tips from people who've been there, done that.

-Blast

Let me clarify. These are volunteer units so there aren't crews at the firehouse waiting to respond. The local crew arrived very quickly but it was still more than 4 minutes (don't know how much longer because I wasn't there) before they arrived. The two other crews came from neighboring towns 3-5 miles away so just travel time takes a little bit.

In a modern frame house (according to the fire marshall) the fire would have been much worse, perhaps a total loss. But the fire was mainly kept between exterior brick and the inside plaster walls. The oak beams burned very hot but slowly. We believe the fire had been burning more than 30 minutes before it was discovered.

Like I said, we got lucky.

I grabbed my computer & my packet of legal documents (both by my bed) on the way out, and so I am now able to take a picture of the burnt out shell of my house and post it to Equipped. Now I can ask you guys for advice on what to do next.

DB

Hijack, public service announcement -

Check your insurance policy now, even if a renter.

If you do not have full replacement cost insurance, you are going to get hosed. For example, the PC I am typing on cost about $800 six months ago. With full replacement, I get the cost of a comparable PC. Without full replacement, I get the depreciated cost of the PC, roughly $400, no kidding.

If you are a renter and don't have insurance, get some. Now. You wanna trust the clown down the way to not start a fire? Thought not.

On a side note, Homeowners/renters does not, will not, has never, covered floods. If you live in a flood plain, get flood insurance. Totally different animal.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled discussion...

I learned from guys on the job who had fires of their own !

Their insurance company said stuff like, "oh you can re-use those rafters" , they were burnt, chared but the insurance company said they were ok to re use. Who would build a house with burnt wood ?? They wanted to pay for carpet cleaning,look you'll never get the smoke smell out, you need new ones.

Fires suck for those who have them. But in my mind and who knows I've never had one of my own,but at 52y/o I could walk away with all gone as long as my wife and 2 college girls were ok .trust me I'd rather not.......

That said back up stuff ! Make copies of family photos, buy some fire safes. if your dad's dog tags and watch are important to you,get a safe deposite box! ( My own case, Dad was a WWII vet who came home after his brother was killed)


Stay Safe !

Public Service Announcement #2

READ your insurance policy!

If your policy doesn't have all the specific coverages right in front, go through the policy and mark the pages with post-it notes that show specific coverages. Are they what you wanted/expected? Do they need to be changed?

JBMat said it right: REPLACEMENT COST (RC) replaces like kind and quality with the same, with no depreciation. ACTUAL CASH VALUE (ACV) is what you get after they deduct age and depreciation. And there's a world of difference between the two. And it's separate, the building is one entity, and the contents are another. You might have RC on the building and ACV on the contents. Is that what you want?

Then read the policy. Yes, it's very dry. Yes, it's boring. Take a pencil and underline everything you specifically think is important, everything you don't understand, everything you would like your insurance company to explain. A different color pencil for each type is good.

There are generally two kinds of insurance customers:
1) The ones who take the insurance company's word on everything (the ins. co. LOVES people like this)
2) The ones that read the policy, ask questions, and know what their options are.

INSURANCE COMPANIES ARE IN THE PREMIUM-COLLECTING BUSINESS, NOT IN THE CLAIM-PAYING BUSINESS.

If your ins. co. adjuster is snotty, stiff-necked, or a jerk, call the company and say you want a different adjuster. You can do this.

Match what the ins. company is telling you against what your ins. policy says. Is it different? Do there seem to be gray areas?

If it appears that they're not living up to the terms of the contract, don't rush to call your attorney. He costs money. Your State Insurance Commission (IC) works for you, for free, and a decision is usually made quite quickly (here in WA, w/in two wks). Without the approval of the IC, your ins co doesn't operate in your state. They tiptoe around the IC and say, "Yes, Sir" a lot. If they PO the IC, they lose their rights to sell insurance in your state, and believe me, this has happened more times than you may think.

If you think your ins. co. isn't playing fair, call the IC. You'll just get a receptionist, so give her the problem within two or three sentences. She will send you a form where you put all the tiny details.

Document EVERYTHING: who you speak to, date/time, the gist of the conversations, etc. Put all this in your complaint to the IC.

THIRDPIG is also correct about ins. co. trying to cut corners at your expense. If they want you to rebuild with damaged parts, your State Building Code will usually forbid it for structural materials. "Let me talk to my attorney about that," is a good stall. Call the Building Code people.

Nothing is engraved in stone until you sign the papers. READ THEM, don't take a verbal explanation and just sign them! Do you see any surprises? Don't sign!

An old friend once said, "Before the Good Faith Laws were put in place, the only difference between an insurance company and the Mafia was that you could trust the Mafia to do as they said, but not the insurance company."

Sue

I have sewer backup and sump pump failure insurance, which is a totally different animal than the National Flood Insurance Program http://www.fema.gov/business/nfip/ . When I had a double(!) sump pump failure and flooded, my insurance company paid up promptly and in full.

And flood insurance changed in 1995, it doesn't matter if your near water or not, it your below a certain elevation you have to have flood insurance. I know it was 1995 because it was right before we bought our house and we ended up having to pay extra for flood insurance because it was 1' below the required elevation. Other houses that were bought and sold on the same street didn't because they were at or above the required elevation.

I volunteer with the Red Cross and turn out every few weeks on a Disaster Action Team primarily for home and apartment fires across the county, after hours and on weekends. Although we show up at the invitation of the FD based on the occupants needing assistance, its a steady business, averaging a call every 30 hours. We offer food, clothing and lodging, in the case of my team at least until the following day or Monday when the local Red Cross office opens and regular client case workers can meet with clients and work out details of additional assistance. All American Red Cross assistance is free, the gift of a generous American Public. There are a few things about home fires that stick out to me after leading about a hundred of these calls:

- Thirdpig is right, if everyone gets out, everything else is gravy. Its when someone doesn't make it out of a fire that things get bad for everyone. Its so involved, I can't even cover it here. Make a plan NOW, practice it, GET OUT. Get everyone out. If that happens, you'll do ok.

- Most folks are in shock, at least for a while. Everything they own has just burned up. They also enter the fire with every foible they had before it - drunk boyfriends, girlfriends on drugs, bad relationships. That complicates a fair number of fire scenes.

- prescription meds. Those can be recovered too, either with a call to a 24 hour pharmacy or a trip to a local ER. Computers are wonderful - there are generally accessible records that can get you your meds. We do alot of medical referrals. Also prescription equipment - nebulizers, CPAP machines and the like.

- Red Cross gets involved on fires mainly with low income clients. They're usually renters. They don't have alot of resources to recover with. The comments from folks who document their losses and know how to deal with insurers are dead on - I wish everyone had insurance. Sadly enough, you would also not believe how many people can't afford insurance, both renters and home owners.

- You would be surprised how many people have insurance and don't remember it, not right away - they're mostly in shock. But when we show up, one of the first questions is on insurance, and suddenly they remember, but they don't have the account number. Sometimes, especially renters, they won't remember the insurer either. In ~100 fire calls I have had one client pull out their insurance paperwork saved from a fire. Its not terribly important to do that, not right away anyhow. Just try to remember the name of your insurer. We carry a list of major insurers and their 24 hour contacts, and whether you remember your account or policy number, don't worry, they can look it up. Contact your insurer first thing. Not only are your recovery expenses covered by them, they'll book your room, show up with a check for immediate expenses - everything that the Red Cross does.

- a fair number of folks come away with their cell phones, but not as many with their charging cords. Not enough, to the point where we've started collecting a box of ad hoc charging cords that we rumble through and donate to folks who need a way to charge their phones. You can always buy one yourself when the stores open, but if you're on the phone with your insurer for a couple hours or with relatives to tell them you're okay, or if you're like me and the phone you saved just doesn't have alot of juice at 2AM. Me, I always buy multiple charging cords for my cell phones, and keep them in my go kit, in my car, at work etc.

- depending on the fire, you'll get a chance to go back inside the residence with a fire fighter escort, and maybe recover your wallets, keys, phones, and a change of clothing. Its a trip of course. If you want to expect to recover something, keep it on the floor. If the fire is hot enough, everything is charred from the waist up. Often though you won't get in, there are enough dangerous gasses built up that they can't let you in.

- boarding up and securing your smoking hull of a house: your insurer will have the name of a company that does this 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They'll generally contact them and get them to your fire before daylight, so you won't feel compelled to stay around and guard your belongings. The same thing goes for smoke and water damage (ex. apartments with sprinklers). I could give some names, or so could any fire fighter, but talk to your insurer, they have to pay for it anyway.

- firearms: you'll have to self-evacuate those. I recall a client who pulled a dozen semi-auto rifles out of their front door and put them in their car. If you have a number of firearms, you should also have a plan on where to secure those if your house is no longer viable.

- take care of your kids. Get them out of course, but also take time to talk to them about what happened. At fire scenes most adults congregate in one area and start dealing generally with the process of recovery, kids tend to gather on their own and deal with, well I don't know. Maybe they start rationalizing the fire with other kids. I see them mostly doing kiddish things. If the fire was large and the exit was traumatic, they are mostly still in shock, like the adults. As follow up we see a fair number of PTSD like issues associated with kids afraid to fall asleep, nightmares, being hypersensitive to smoke and flames etc. Its only with a bit more experience that I pay more attention to kids than I did earlier on, but you have to check in with them and talk to them - tell them they did a great thing getting out, that everything is going to be okay. Early intervention seems to help with kids, they're mostly made of rubber and will bounce back given the opportunity.

- a note for renters: even before insurance, the #1 thing I'd look for in a place is overhead sprinklers. Usually this is only on newer construction or if the fire code requires it for multi family units, but the difference in damage and survivability is amazing. My #1 daughter is moving into her first apartment this fall, the only thing I insisted on was sprinklers. I am even putting sprinklers as my #1 home upgrade if I go through with a kitchen remodel.

- turkey fryers, bad idea. In one week I recall 3 fires started by turkey fryers. Its predictable, and doesn't always follow the Thanksgiving season. Turkey fryers and beer is a bad idea too.

- neighbors who care are a beautiful thing. I say that not just because it can save the Red Cross a night or two of lodging, but a neighbor who gets out of their bed at 3am to console you and tell you everything will be alright is the kind of person to keep around. They'll take you in and keep you warm and dry on a cold and rainy night. They'll put your kids back to bed while the fire scene works through the aftermath. They give me a place to work out of the elements too. Take my advice: stop by your neighbors this weekend with a pie or cookies or a couple beers, and have a nice chat. Get to know them. Right away on any fire, I can tell where people have those kinds of close relationships - spare clothing and shoes magically appear from homes and garages, blankets if its cold, everything. It matters not your income. Neighbors can usually out Red Cross the Red Cross.

Thanks for a very informative and thorough post, Lono! I wonder whether you'd be so kind as to entertain two questions I have. They're psychological in nature, I suppose.



This may sound like a stupid question, but is a fire the sort of life crisis that tends to lead people to take a hard look at themselves and end the bad relationships, etc.? Or is this case by case as with most things human?



If we find ourselves in the lucky position of being the neighbors rather than the victims, how can we comfort the unlucky, other than by giving them the necessities & shelter? Knowing me, I can just imagine saying stupid things that focus on the practical aspects, and totally forgetting about the words that would give them comfort. What do they typically want to hear, and how should we tell it to them? I am afraid that "it's going to be OK" (the first thing that'd come to my mind) really won't stand up "my house just burned down!"

Thanks!

Da Bing

DS, DH, and SD if she's home, are absolutely my only priorities. I'm not even going to contemplate not getting them out. The rest is just stuff. (Sorry cats. If there's time, you'll be on the list too.)

If I think of stuff at all, it would be my EDC purse. It has some important and useful stuff, including keys to both vehicles, which have some more stuff, not to mention the vehicles could be very useful stuff.

Lono, do you mean important stuff should be stored closer to the floor? Interesting, I never though of that but it makes good sense.

-Blast

On your first question (there are no stupid questions) - I don't know. I'm a disaster caregiver, my involvement typically runs 24-48 hours from the fire, at most. Other folks pick up and provide assistance after that. My actual job is to keep my time at the fire scene minimal - its 3AM, clients have just been through trauma, they're tired, they don't want to spend alot of time talking to a guy in a red vest. I don't have enough to go on to know what happens longer term, sorry.

On your second question, what I've seen that seems to work best if when a neighbor can look at their just burned out neighbor, and anticipate needs: because even though she's without shoes, she's not asking anyone for a pair, her thoughts are with her missing cat or her losses inside the home, all the family memories and memorabilia etc. If she's barefoot or in socks, bring her a spare pair of shoes that might fit. Offer to take care of her kids (sit them in front of a TV, volume low), bring coffee or a hot drink, give them a place to sit, other than a hard bench on the edge of the fire truck. And don't worry about saying something stupid - the Red Cross trains us not to say stupid things, but we often catch ourselves saying "its going to be OK" and "you're lucky you got out when you did". If you can think to say it, remind your neighbor that *you're* grateful that everyone got out okay, that because of that you know that things will work out in the long run. And about the missing cat, they're usually the first out the door or window, and hiding under a front porch or in the bushes until the fire trucks leave. Usually, but not always. So keep an eye out for missing animals over the next few days.

Good point, I could be easily misinterpreted on that statement. I've seen when a fire burns hot it melts medicine containers, phones, chars wallets, all stuff kept on bedside tables. But if the wallet, keys etc fell to the floor, maybe they get wet and dirty, but they survive the intense heat. I've also seen things survive on bedside tables too, it just depends on how hot the fire gets. If the interior doors are burned away to the doorknob, chances it was hot enough to do pretty much the same to stuff on a bedside table. All I have to go on are the relatively few fire scenes I've seen, I'm no where near as knowledgeable as a fire fighter.

I didn't mean that if you had alot of important papers you could pile them on the floor and they'd come out okay. If the fire is fought in the room, they'll get really wet in the process, if they didn't burn up in the first place. Anything important, use a safe rated for fire protection. But I would mount such a safe down low too :-)

Last year I had to go through this. My son left a pot of water boiling on the stove to sterilize his nebulizers, then forgot all about it. 3AM the smoke detector goes off, house is filled with toxic, acrid smoke from the burning plastic. At first I didn't know how bad it was, I just knew we needed to GET OUT!

Shoes, wallet, key ring and cell phone were all on my dresser and I grabbed them and my slippers on the way past. Kids and dog were ushered outside, the cats were being their typical antisocial selves and were left for the moment. Of course it was 40 degrees outside and raining.

Once all the people were safe I went back inside to see where the fire was and if anything could be done, while my daughter called 911. I found the burning pot -- it hadn't caught to anything yet -- moved it to the sink and turned-off the stove. Disaster avoided, but it took hours to clear the house of smoke, even using the high-power fans the fire department had with them.

Since then I've taken to keeping our 'go bags' out in the storage shed, in tight-sealing storage containers to keep pests out. I figure the extra minute or two needed to grab the bags out of the shed is a worthwhile trade-off to getting stuck outside in the cold and rain in your underwear and slippers. With hurricane Irene approaching, I will probably move them into our living room in case things deteriorate to the point that evacuation is indicated.

Oh, the cats wound up strolling out the open front door after a few minutes, looking disinterested in the entire situation. I locked them and the dog in my son's Jeep for safe-keeping until the smoke was cleared and the fire department left. They thanked me by wining the entire time to get out.

Wow Lono, freaking great post. Lots of info. Thanks.

I'd finally have a legitimate excuse to sponge off the government like the rest of my neighbors who have been doing it illegitimately for as long as I've known them. ;-)