Check Everything.... After A Fire

I am currently still working on the "After Fire Advice Booklet". It's been 8 plus months in the making, and I don't want to leave anything out, and being that I only get a limited amount of time to work on it, it's coming along slowly. I wanted, however to post a little something more.



When you have a house fire that does not completely engulf the house in flames, but you have major smoke damage. Assume that it has damaged every nook and cranny of the house. Don't assume for one second that there was a space in your house that was spared from smoke damage. I took for granted that our Christmas decorations were spared, so I never looked at them. That was until Friday night, when we took out the bins and bins of Christmas decorations that we have amassed for the last 12 years. 8, 40 gallon Bins to be exact


Now keep in mind, these bins were in closed plastic totes, and closed boxes, under the stairs. Literally hundreds of tree decorations, table toppers, wreaths, mistletoe, stockings, and tree skirts... gone. Ruined by smoke damage. As soon as we opened the boxes, we could smell the smoke. That distinct smell came up from the depths of each box, brought back a flood of memories...memories that I would like to forget about. As we began to take pictures of every item for our insurance records, I could see the eyes of my daughters well up.


3 hours of taking pictures of every single item, as tired as I was from my Black Friday shopping, I knew that we had to take the girls out, to go and buy a new tree, and let them pick out some ornaments. So that's what we did, at 10 o'clock Friday night. Filled up a carriage we did, and came home to set up the new tree, at midnight... Needless to say the girls slept well, with visions of the new tree, and excited to make new memories. The tree is still a little bare, but I'm sure after the holidays, we will be hitting the clearance sales for more!


The point of this post....Check everything after a fire! Don't assume that closed totes and bins are safe...Nothing is safe from soot and smoke damage, nothing.