House fire

For those that don't know, two weeks ago we experienced every home owners worst fear, a house fire. http://fire.hansentribe.com It was a typical Tuesday, go into Lexington and get my allergy shot, take the kids to music class, meet Jason for lunch and then we went shopping for a Father's Day present. The kids and I arrived home around 4:45 and I started dinner (mac and cheese) while the kids played and then we got ready to go to the library for a summer program that started at 6:30. We walked to the library so, we probably left the house around 6:10. Buddy decided that he didn't want to be inside so I leashed him to the tree in the backyard (this seems to be an indicator that he knew something was going on before I or the kids did). The kids enjoyed Mr. Cowpie and his traveling menagerie and we started to walk home. I'm not sure what time it was at that point but I'm guessing around 7:30. As we are walking, I have Izaak on my shoulders, we notice a police car and an EMT/ambulance in the intersection in fornty of us. I casually remark to Kareena that there must be an accident. We ealk a little farther and I can see black smoke pouring out of my front parlor window. I believe I said something like "Our house is on fire, Kareena, run!" We run the rest of the block to the house, cross the street and walk up to someone who looks like they know what is going on and I tell them this is my house. Of course, they say something like "I'm sorry for your loss" and ask us to stand on the other side of the street. Another fireman walks up to the kids and hands them each a teddy bear. Kareena at this time is balling her eyes out and one of my neighbors takes her to go play with her daughter. I still have Izaak with me at this point on my shoulders and I borrow some black man's cell phone, who's watching my house go up in flames, so I can call Jason who is in Nashville. Luckily, he answers the phone and I tell him our house is on fire. He says, "Our house is on fire? Do I need to come home? Our house is on fire! I need to go home." Luckily, he had just got there and hadn't unpacked, he was there with his boss and he just got his bags and jumped in the car. At this time the fire is still contained in the basement and a fireman comes up to me and asks for a key. We have keyless entry that thankfully runs on battery and they were able to get in without breaking down the door. Our house is a balloon frame construction and so the firefighters immediately went to the attic to put out the fire up there. There was no fire in the attic. Jason spent most of the winter insulating the attic and so the fire wasn't able to draft up the walls. All the firemen were outside strapping on new air tanks when the fire flashed through the downstairs. For me, that was the scariest moment. Until then, it was just smoke. Seeing the fire smash through my antique front and screen door and my front porch set ablaze. That was scary and that made it all very real. Fortunately, I had a lot of neighbors watching out for me and the kids. The rest of the evening is kind of a blur. Kareena came back to me and then both kids went with our a neighbors house to play in their hot tub. I know at one point I was very thirsty and kept loosing my glass of water. I did ask one of the firemen if they could bring me my purse out of the kitchen. When they brought it to me, it was almost completely charred. There was about two inches that you could see the original color and the design that was sewn on. I opened it up, dug out my cell phone and it still worked. Me and my purse made it on the evening news that night! Most of the contents were a loss due to smoke and soot damage. Fortunately, Jason was able to salvage his hard drives and we still have all of our digital pictures. We also had two fire boxes with all Izaak's and our important documents safely inside. We did find several photo albums that had very damaged covers but, the pictures inside were fine. The items we brought back from Korea for Izaak made it and even his hanbok, which was slightly burned, we think we can save and put in a shadow box and no one would know. Oh yeah, the cause was narrowed down to a staple holding an electrical wire that ran from the AC condenser unit outside to the inside of the house. Apparently, it was nailed in to tightly and caused it to arc and eventually start the fire. Angela