Terrifying fire in the farmhouse on Jan 2nd

Hello friends,

Everyone is safe, all people, all animals. Other than a some smoke inhalation by ManChild and me (the paramedics looked us over and took our stats and all was well) no one was hurt.

I’m sitting here typing this on my smoky iPad, luckily it has a keyboard in the case. We are staying at a neighbor’s house Thursday and Friday night, and hoping to find a VRBO nearby to live in for a while until we get the house straightened out. Yes we have insurance thank God! ManChild’s room is toast and the rest of the house has smoke damage. Luckily we have great neighbors who are keeping a close eye on everything and friends who are stopping by everyday in between morning and evening chores when we are here. If you are interested in taking some shifts and visiting the animals, please text me at 720-635-7015

Here’s the story of Thursday morning 3:40am:

I sleep in the loft, almost directly above ManChild’s room, B-Rad is in the master bedroom at the other end of this long, mostly one level house. I suddenly woke up. It was dark. I was lying there wondering what woke me up (thanks Mom, angels, and guides!) when I heard:

Bang! (ManChild’s feet hitting the floor)

His door flew open.

Me from the my loft bedroom: What’s wrong?

ManChild, calm (he doesn’t freak in emergencies, none of us did): There’s a fire.

Me: WHAT? WHERE? Flying out of bed. I’m in the loft, half walls, no door. There is a dog gate at the top of the stairs and I have a folding screen in front of it as my “door.” I wrench the whole thing out of the way, realize I need my phone, grab it and tear down the stairs.

Smoke in ManChild’s room but I don’t stop to look, rush past ManChild who is standing like a statue in the middle of the hall, wide eyed, and grab a fire blanket that I had hung in the pantry a year ago. 

I said, “Call 911”

ManChild: I don’t have my phone (Brad found it after the fire on his desk so it was wet but not burned up, yay!)

Run to the room, and in the split second it took me to throw the fire blanket, I see his bed is on fire.

HIS BED IS ON FIRE! And he was just sleeping IN IT. He typically sleeps on the right side of it, closest to the door, and the head of the bed on that side was engulfed in flames. The foot of the bed had a column of flames as well.

The fire was as tall as I was. 

I threw the fire blanket on the foot of the bed and flew back to the pantry to grab the second fire blanket, threw it over the head of the bed, shut the door and bellowed. “BRAD!!!!!”

Heard him yell something and I yelled back: FIRE!!!!

I grabbed Lucy’s leash and handed it to ManChild: Get Lucy, get outside, stay outside and he did exactly that.

I ran to the kitchen to get the fire extinguisher and yanked it apart. Sprayed it into the garage floor to see if it was working, yes.

Brad was on the phone giving our address and directions to the farm. He grabbed the other fire extinguisher, opened the door to ManChild’s room, shut the door. I grabbed all our farm jackets hanging by the door and threw them into the garage, it was cold.

I took a deep breath, opened ManChild’s door hoping to at least suppress it a little bit more. 

SO MUCH SMOKE. 

Shut the door again and went out into the garage. Brad was already getting into his car and ManChild was putting Lucy in mine. 

A split second to realize that Teslas, well any car really, whether it’s full of gasoline or a big battery, are ticking time bombs. 

Right, get the cars out. Drove them over to the neighbor’s barn, told ManChild and Lucy to stay put in my car where it was safe and warm and ran back to get Brad’s old Tesla out of the driveway, parked it over at the barn as well.

Stood there and just chanted, “Please hurry, please hurry, please hurry.” Called my dad and told him what was going on and to please pray.

And then I saw the lights. Thank God. 7 fire trucks and 2 ambulances. On a farm there are no fire hydrants so they bring the big water trucks. These crews came from Apex, Holly Springs, and Cary.

They geared up, went in and cleared the house. We had told them we were all out but I was told by the paramedics they always check for people and pets because 4% of the time the person calling 911 is crazed and forgot someone.

ManChild and I were with the paramedics while Brad watched them put out the fire. They tackled the bed, it was fully engulfed and sprayed water directly into the holes the fire had created in the bed to try to get it out. It kept burning in new spots. They drug it out onto the driveway and made sure nothing else was burning in the room.

And that’s as far as my energy allows right now. I will write another installment of this crazy story soon, maybe in the middle of the week, maybe for next Saturday. There is SO much more to tell. There are silver linings, as there usually are in tragedies and I will write about those too!

Hug your family and animals close.

Much love from The Mother Ranch,

Julia

ManChild’s bedroom door from the hall:

Below is after dragging the burning bed out of the house, through the garage:

ManChild is so sad, that cute little cow print chest under the bed frame is something my Mom bought him years ago when he was just a little kid.