A few days? Maybe I'm over-reacting to this story, but that's a long time to notice the smell of something burning in your house without figuring out the source. I think lesson #1 would be to not ignore a burning smell inside your house. I can't imagine going to sleep knowing that something could be burning in my house and not knowing where, especially with a child. The burning smell could've been something far more dangerous than loose breakers. If I couldn't find an obvious source of the smell, I think that I would have then tried cutting the power myself and seeing if the burning smell goes away. I still may not know the source simply by cutting the power, but at least the threat has been minimized or eliminated at that point if the smell stops.

It's good that you've taken some steps to protect your documents, but what about the people? Do you have smoke detectors and regularly check those batteries? Do you have an evacuation plan and does your son know it? Have you ever done a fire drill at night? There was that TV segment not that long ago that showed children would just sleep right through your typical beeping smoke detector even though it was beeping loudly in the same room with them! That was frightening to watch.