Story of a Fire

This is a true story...

I remember that my boyfriend had just got back to town a couple days before. He’d been in Rio with a couple friends for Carnivale. I actually called him my non-boyfriend for a long time. When people looked puzzled I explained that we were just serious enough that it wasn’t really appropriate to date other people, but not serious enough to call him my boyfriend. And, a long time was off and on for a few years.

I remember I was anxious for several days before he returned. I felt like I’d had too many cups of coffee on an empty stomach, you know, jittery, and like I couldn’t really catch my breath. It was weird and I didn’t understand what was going on. I thought that maybe I was more frustrated than I realized with my non-boyfriend and more irritated than I realized that he preferred to spend his vacations with his friends than with me. I didn’t totally buy it, but there wasn’t anything else out of the ordinary going on.

He got back into town on a Friday. I don’t remember if I picked him up or not, probably I did. I thought that if my anxiety did come from him being out of town it would go away when he returned, but it didn’t.

The next day I was signed up in a jewelry making class. I think I was supposed to be there from 10-4. It was rainy that day. I remember being excited about it, excited that I could put on a pair of boots and a hat and hopefully get some use out of my umbrella. (I’ve had one in my car for a couple years now that I have only opened once, and that was to show someone how cute it was) I didn’t need any coffee because I woke up more agitated than I’d already been the last several days. I sat in class feeling like I was getting more and more bug-eyed and shorter of breath as time passed, like I was maybe fighting off some sort of anxiety attack. I remember trying to act normal, but feeling like all of my actions were exaggerated and like my voice was too loud or something, I’m not exactly sure, but things felt wrong, like I was dreaming and trying to fit into my surroundings when I couldn’t remember why I was there or what I was supposed to be doing, but didn’t want anyone around me to suspect. I was really grateful when we broke for lunch. I took a little walk in the rain and thought about going home. I decided against it finally. After all, nothing was wrong, I was just feeling weird. And I paid money for the class. I definitely wouldn’t get any refund if I walked out for no reason half way through. So I stuck it out, but couldn’t wait to go home.

It was still rainy and getting dark when I left. Being so anxious all day had left me exhausted. I went home, climbed into bed, and slept for several hours. I think it was around 8 o’clock when I woke up. My nap hadn’t done much for me. I still felt anxious and didn’t feel rested. I thought a bath and a glass of wine (or two or three) might do the trick so I started the bath, poured some wine, and lit some candles. I remembered exactly what I was reading that night… It was a short story by Robert Louis Stevenson called Olalla. You ever read it? It kept my morbid interest through to the end, complemented my strange mood nicely, and definitely didn’t improve things.

I got out of the tub feeling more frustrated than I did when I got in. I should have read some O. Henry instead, that would have cheered me up. Anyway, I left the candles lit on the side of the bath. They were tea lights. You know, the small ones in the metal trays. They were almost burned out anyway and there wasn’t anything flammable around them, so I figured I may as well let them burn out on their own; I’d done it tons of times before.

It was much later now, probably around 11:30. I normally would have been in bed asleep, even on a Saturday night (I didn’t go out much) but that long nap in the afternoon had kind of messed me up. So I climbed back into bed and put in a movie: The Name of the Rose with Sean Connery and Christian Slater. I’d read the book, which I really enjoyed. I tried to sit still and watch, hoping to get sleepy. I wanted to go to sleep, and hoped I’d wake up the next morning feeling better, but that didn’t happen. I couldn’t seem to relax.

So I started doing laundry around 12:30. I remember it was chilly. There wasn’t any insulation in the house, none in the walls, none in the attic. I kept a space heater in my bedroom in the winter and would keep my bedroom door closed most of the way to keep the heat in as much as possible. I half-watched the movie while I folded laundry. I remember three of my four cats were asleep on the bed. I heard some noises coming from the other room, but didn’t think anything of it; my fourth cat wasn’t in the bedroom and he’s the noisiest of the bunch. I figured he was probably just playing by himself somewhere. As I was putting some clothes away in the closet a strange light, coming from outside my bedroom, caught my eye. I didn’t remember leaving any lamps on in the rest of the house. I took my time putting the things away in the closet and then went out to investigate. The kitchen was just outside my bedroom and the light wasn’t coming from in there, but my heart started to race immediately because I knew something was wrong. It was such a strange light, it had a glow to it that was wrong on the inside of a house. I turned my head to look into the bathroom and saw that one whole wall of my bathroom was on fire.

For some reason I didn’t think the fire was that bad. I remember thinking that maybe I could put it out, smother it still. I found a beach towel somewhere that I tried to use. All I succeeded in doing was burning myself (fortunately not too badly). When I realized I wouldn’t succeed I went to the phone and called 911. It seemed like it took forever for them to answer the phone, but probably it didn’t. While I waiting I could see the smoke was filling up the house, I watched it creep slowly down the walls. A woman answered. I told her that my house was on fire, that she needed to send someone, and then I put the receiver down on the floor. The smoke was down to the tops of the doorways, and I was afraid to stay on the phone any longer, besides, I know they can see the address a call is coming from.

By this time I didn’t know where any of the cats were. I went and opened the back door, hoping they would go out that way. To go out the front door they would have to run by the fire. I ran out the front door (in my bra and underwear). I ran next door and rang my neighbor’s door bell, a dozen times, maybe more. When they didn’t come out right away I ran up to a car that was passing by. In it were two drunk guys going home from a bar. They were all smiles, and for a minute they thought it was their lucky night. I told them I needed them to call 911, that my house was on fire. They stared at me blankly and then one of them looked up, pointed, and said –Hey look, there’s smoke coming out of that house. (yeah, duh :) They called 911 as my neighbors came out with a bathrobe. One of them tried to put it on me, but I fought her off, I didn’t get that I was practically naked in the middle of the street. She managed to kind of clothe me, but I didn’t care, I wanted to know where the firemen were. I live a block away from a fire station. I’d called 911 ages ago. Where the heck were they? Barefoot in my neighbor’s bathrobe I started to run down the street to go wake the firemen up. I got a couple houses down when I saw them come out, sirens on. I stopped and stared, at the truck coming with its sirens on, at the smoke coming out of my house, thicker and thicker (from outside I could see the flames through my bathroom window), at my neighbors who started to come out of their houses in their bathrobes. Suddenly I couldn’t move. I couldn’t believe what was happening, and where were my poor cats. Did they get out?

One of my neighbors came over and led me back to her front porch. I remember her sitting me down and rearranging the bathrobe until she was satisfied I was as decent as possible. I sat there on her porch and watched as the fire got worse and worse. The crowd grew, made up not just of my neighbors by this time, but also of firemen and policemen, and even news vans. I sat there mumbling, getting more and more angry, “Where’s the water?” I kept asking, “Where’s the water?” My neighbor thought I was delirious, which I probably was, but I didn’t understand why they weren’t trying to put the fire out. There were at least two or three fire engines parked right outside. There’s a hydrant across the street. I didn’t understand what the problem was.

One of the firemen came over to talk to me. Maybe they’d been trying to figure out whose house it was, I don’t know. I think he asked if there was anyone else inside. I remember telling him I lived alone, but had four cats. Then I think he asked me if there were any chemicals inside. I didn’t understand what he meant. I’m not in the habit of storing gasoline in the house, but who doesn’t have some kind of chemicals in their house?

My neighbor brought her phone out to me and asked me if I wanted to call someone. I took it and tried to call my non-boyfriend, but dialed the wrong number. My hands were shaking and I couldn’t seem to hit the right numbers. Finally I got it right but he didn’t answer, it went to voicemail. I left a message. I told him that my house was on fire. I told him I needed him to come right away.

A couple paramedics came up and told me they needed to take me to the emergency room. I told them I was Ok, and didn’t want to go. They conned me finally into getting into the ambulance so they could put me on oxygen. I climbed onto the gurney and tried to relax a little as they put the mask over my mouth. My neighbor came over looking mad, talking on her phone to someone. She held the phone up and yelled to me something like, “It’s-a your-a boyfriend, and he’s-a really a-stupid.” (she’s Italian :) I took off the mask and talked to him. I said “Hello,” and he asked, “Who is this?” I said “It’s Ruth. I need you to come, my house is on fire.” He asked me again who I was and if this was some kind of a joke. I could understand why my neighbor was mad, he was being stupid. I repeated myself as slowly and clearly as I could until I thought he got it and then I hung up the phone.

As I sat there a neighbor came to the ambulance with one of my cats. I thought it was my oldest cat, who is gray, but then I realized it was one of my orange cats. He was gray from the fire.

My non-boyfriend finally showed up. I was still in the ambulance. I told him to look for the rest of the cats. The paramedics told me again we should go to the emergency room, they said you can die from smoke inhalation 24 hours after you are in a fire. They told me you can feel fine, then suddenly your throat swells shut, and you suffocate. That did it, I didn’t want to choke to death the next day, so I went.

The funniest doctors I’ve met were in the emergency room that morning. They knew all kinds of jokes about smoking and fires. Why can’t doctors be that funny all the time? At some point I got up to go use the bathroom. I was directed down a long hallway. I shuffled along, still in my neighbor’s bathrobe. As I walked I noticed that everyone was staring at me. I was getting mad again, it’s not nice to stare at someone like that. I realized why they were staring when I went into the bathroom and took a look in the mirror. My face was completely black with soot. I looked like I was just in a fire. I would have been staring too if I saw someone walking around like that.

My non-boyfriend showed up after a while. He said they’d caught a second cat, and he’d seen a third that he couldn’t catch. He said he looked all over the house after they put the fire out and didn’t find any dead cats, so he guessed they all made it out. After some x-rays and blood tests they determined I was Ok and let me leave.

We went back to the house. By this time it was around 4am. The immense crowd had dispersed. We called around for the two missing cats. We heard one, crying pathetically from under the deck on the side of the house but we couldn’t get him to come out. After trying for a half hour we finally gave up until later that morning.

We came back after getting some sleep and found #3. My fourth was missing for several more days. One of my neighbors caught her and called me. They were all in bad shape. All of them burned the bottoms of their feet badly. One needed surgery on a particularly badly burned foot. One of my girls was in worse shape, she was wheezing and coughing, her corneas were burned, and her ears were badly burned. Pieces of them fell off for weeks; it was pretty gross, and really sad. I had to give them all antibiotics twice a day for like a month. That really sucked. We were at the vet twice a week for a couple weeks, then once a week for several weeks after that, to make sure none of their burns got infected.

I tell people my house burned down, which isn’t exactly true, it didn’t burn to the ground. But almost none of my belongings were salvageable. I almost wished it all had burned because it seemed sadder for things I couldn’t keep to still be recognizable.

I came to find out that in situations like mine there are companies whose job it is to remove everything from the house. They are supposed to clean what they can and give those things back to you, fix what can be fixed and give those things back to you, and make a list of the things that are not fixable so you can submit to your insurance company for reimbursement. I had a bad feeling about the process for some reason, a bunch of strange people taking all of my belongings away, so I made a point of going through everything myself before they arrived on scene. I packed up everything that was not damaged, mostly antique dishes and glassware, and put it all into my garage (detached). Turned out later that the company came, took all my stuff, and then went out of business. My stuff disappeared. I never got any lists. I turned into a huge pain. Not long after that my garage was broken into and everything I’d saved was stolen. Crazy huh? Things can always get worse, don’t ever tempt fate by saying they can’t :)

By the time the demo on my house was done, which included a hazmat team removing lead paint, all that was left was the foundation, the subfloors, and two-x-fours. Fortunately there wasn’t more damage because I ended up being about two grand from maxing the insurance coverage on the structure.

So how did it start? The firemen were certain it was the candles. Lots of fires are started by unattended candles. I don’t buy it. I’d lit candles in that bathroom countless times. There were no towels, no containers, nothing around them that was flammable, I was always extremely cautious. And, like I said, they were tea lights and almost burned out when I got out of the tub. The insurance company didn’t investigate. They don’t unless they think it might be arson, it costs too much. Why pay for an investigation if you have to pay out on a claim anyway? They chalked it up to faulty wiring.

What do I think? Well, bad wiring is the most likely explanation. The house was old, built (the first time) in 1912, and the newest wiring was probably 30+ years old. The whole thing was so strange though. That I was so extremely anxious for several days before it happened. I really believe if I hadn’t taken that nap in the afternoon, I would have gone to sleep like normal around 10:30 that night, and I would be dead now. I don’t understand why my fire alarms never went off. The batteries were fine, I was good about changing them. My house is small, 940 square feet. How could my cats have been sleeping when a fire was burning just across the hall? Why didn’t the strange noises wake them up? Why didn’t they smell it? Why didn’t I smell it?

What do you think?