Burnin' down the house

Next to somebody I love being hurt or killed, it's my worst fear - my house burning down.  And it nearly happened today.

Dakota and I were standing in the kitchen, and she told me she could smell something that smelled like burning marshmallows.  I sniffed - indeed, it did smell a little like burning marshmallows.  I went searching for the source, and decided since the smell was the strongest in Jared and Isabelle's bedroom, it was probably the fan.  I took it out.  But minutes later, the smell was stronger.  Simon started looking with me, and there didn't seem to be anything else that could cause it in that room, so we started looking elsewhere.  Until I walked back past that room - and could see smoke swirling around the skylight.  Shit!  Fire!  The effing house is on fire!  I think I screamed something to that effect, and screamed for everybody to get out.

I grabbed my phone and followed the kids downstairs.  When we got to the shop door, Isabelle stopped and I yelled at her to get out, get out the front door - and instead she ran back past me and back up the stairs.  Definitely highlights a need for fire drills!  I caught her and took her back down, by then Dakota had opened the front door of the shop and there was a random stranger inside screaming for a fire extinguisher. I called 000 - they said they had already been called. Knowing the only fire extinguisher was upstairs, I ran back up to the kitchen with the man following - unbeknown to me, Simon had also gone back up and discovered the front deck of the balcony in flames, so he was also back upstairs and had turned the tap on from the outside tank.  I grabbed the fire extinguisher and, at last thought, my laptop (no, I didn't plan to update my facebook status - it has all my photos stored on it) and was back out the front. 

Now, in my head, I was thinking It's ok, the firies are on the way, it's just a fire, they'll put it out.  I felt TOTALLY calm.  It wasn't until my favorite gym instructor, Kylie (bless her!) came running up and asked if I was ok - she'd been driving past and seen the commotion.  Then I realised holy hell, my HOUSE IS ON FIRE!

MY

HOUSE

IS

ON

FIRE

!!!!!!!

My worst fear!  I burst into tears.  By then the brigade was putting the fire out.  Thankfully, it only did a small amount of damage to the building, and we didn't lose any of our belongings except for a few strings of Christmas lights. 

But after something like this, you sit down and think.  Holy hell, what if it had been the middle of the night?  The other thing that happened was our smoke detector didn't go off - we've checked it recently, replaced the battery, etc etc, but despite it being just outside the most smoke-filled room, it didn't make a peep the whole time.  Our CHILDREN would have been asleep in that room.  These little angels:

 

 

 

Jared

 

 

 

Isabelle

 

 

They would have been asleep in that room.  I shudder to think if it had been night - whether we would have gotten them out.  It doesn't bear thinking about!

So tonight, I am thankful - i'm thankful I have my family.  I'm thankful our house caught fire during the day, and not at night.  I'm thankful for the firies who put it out so promptly.  I'm thankful that there were passers-by who rang the fire brigade.  I'm thankful our house DIDN'T burn down.