Welcome and thanks for posting. I went through a similar situation with a home fire when I was about 10 years old. We lost pretty much everything we owned.

I now keep my SHTF bag either next to the front door or in whatever vehicle I traveled in last. I don't yet have everything I would like to have in it, but I'm getting very close. I put my bag together for the purpose of being prepared for any situation, no matter what.

I've only used it thus far for little day-to-day stuff, but have been equipping it with the items I feel I would most need for an extended time (3+ days comfortably, 7 days less comfortably) without being able to go home or even resupply.

We've had several threads lately about fire and reaction time. There's a lot of useful info, most of which you've already experienced first-hand.

I'm a fire alarm system designer/installer/service technician, so I spend a lot of my time studying how fire works, what it does, how it moves, etc... I just took my test for NICET Fire Protection Engineering - Fire Alarm Systems (Levels II and III) yesterday. A lot of studying on how smoke moves, basic combustion principles, detection methods of flaming and smoldering fires, etc...