"It Happened to Me"

The Fire

"My son had come home from school alone. He lit a candle, then went out to get the mail.

When he came back in, the lampshade above the candle was on fire and that spread to the chair next to it.

"When he came in and saw it, he ran out to the kitchen to get some water and try to put it out. Then it dawned on him that this wasn't what he had been told to do. So he called 911. By the time he was done with the 911 call, the windows were blowing out of the house. In just that period, it went from the chair to the drapes to the ceilings to the walls and carpet. He got off the phone, crawled through the house. He knew he had to crawl because the smoke was already halfway through the house.

"We had always told him we had a meeting place — the lamppost in front of the house. So he took the animals, marched out in the snow and waited there until the fire department came. I think this saved his life. When he left, he left the front door open, so unfortunately that let the wind come into the house, and in 45 minutes, the house was completely gone.

"The fire chief said he literally got out just before the house had flashover. The minute he opened the front door and went out, it went 'poof' and flames spread throughout the house, not just the room where the fire started. I would say that in five minutes more, he probably wouldn't have gotten out of there. Unless you've been through it, you don't have a sense of how quickly it happens.

"The Fire Marshal said a candle in a glass jar produces a tornado-shaped heat pattern that rises higher into the air than a regular candle. In 45 minutes, the house was gone.

"It's a strange thing — you wouldn't think a candle could do that much damage, but it did."

On Practicing Fire Drills with Children

"When our three kids were small, we would actually have drills — what to do if something happened in the middle of the night and I couldn't get to them? They knew to go out a window and go to the lamppost.

"My wife would use a stick and turn on the smoke alarm so they would know what that sound was, and then we would just have them practice. 'Feel the door, if the door's hot, go out your window. Here's how to open the window. If the door is not hot, open it very slowly and crawl down the hall.'

"We probably hadn't reviewed the drill in five years, and yet he remembered it. It was obviously something that sunk in. He did all the right things.

"With kids, there's only one way — get out. Make it as simple as possible for them to understand. 'If you hear the alarm, your first order is to get out of the house, and here's how you do it.'"

On Recovery and Rebuilding

"The first day was the worst because you don't have any experience with this. You wake up in the morning and you realize the only thing you have left are the clothes you had on the day before.

"If I had it to do over again, there are some things I should have done differently. I should have had more photographs of the inside of the house. I should have had an inventory of our possessions, and I didn't. So when it's all gone, you have a horrible process of trying to remember what you had, and what's worse, then you have to search through the whole house.

"We donned rubber gloves, suits, hats and breathing masks. We would go into every room and get all the debris together. We would write down the item, and I would take it out and throw it in the dumpster.

"You're faced with a tremendous series of decisions you weren't even thinking about. Some people who build a house might plan a year before they start construction. You have to do it in a couple of months.

"So you have to find a contractor. You have to agree on the amount of the loss. You've got to get everybody lined up to tear down the old one and build the new one. Then you have to go out and buy every room full of furniture — all at the same time.

"My wife quit her job and took a year off to do it. I don't see how a working couple would ever be able to manage it."