Lessons Learned from a Close Call Basement Fire

A very good friend of mine recently had a fire in her basement. She sent out these lessons learned and I thought it was worth sharing. Scary!! It made me think about what I'm doing to prepare to combat a fire if it were to happen to me, and better yet what I'm doing to prevent a fire from starting in the first place. A big issue I have is keeping my cell phone charged. I'm rethinking the decision to get rid of my home phone for this very reason. What if I couldn't even find my one phone in an emergency?!

As some of you have already heard, our hot water heater in the basement laundry room caught on fire Tuesday evening. It spread to a nearby rug and dresser, but fortunately I was able to put it out before it spread further. We had minimal property damage although the basement still reeks of smoke.

This was such a close call in so many ways--if we'd gotten back from soccer practice 15 minutes later, if my daughter hadn't smelled the smoke (my middle-age nose detetected nothing), or if, worst of all, the fire had started three hours later when we were asleep--can't bear to think the outcome.

In true type A fashion, I wanted to share some lessons learned that might help prevent this from happening to someone else.

1. I had flammable items stored too close to the hot water heater. When the hot water heater caught fire, it spread and caused more damage. Originally I had a three foot "clear" zone around the hot water heater but over the years, this rule got disregarded.

2. I didn't have a fire extinguisher in the basement, and wasted precious time filling up a toy pail from the bathroom sink trying to douse the flames. We have a fire extinguisher, but it's upstairs in the kitchen--which is the only place it ever occurred to me that we had a fire risk. Was I ever wrong. Need to have an extinguisher on every level of the house (even the attic). And need to make sure they are CURRENT.

3. I had added fire/smoke detection to my alarm system when it was installed, and I assumed it was for both basement and main floor. Wrong again--when I called Brinks the next day to find out why the alarm hadn't activated, I found out that all smoke/fire sensors had been put on the main floor, none in the basement or attic. Yes, I have an appointment next week to add coverage in the basement and attic.

4. I didn't have a back-up battery smoke detector in the basement (although I have three on the main level). Not a genius moment for me. Just like fire extinguishers, should have battery smoke/fire detectors on every level, including the attic.

5. When I tried to call 911 from the basement phone, the phone battery was dead because I hadn't put it back to charge when I last talked on it. I then wasted more precious time running up the stairs to get a working phone. If ever you need a reason to put the phone back in the cradle to charge after you finish a call, consider my example.

In addition, the firemen told me that due to the current "brown outs" of fire stations (where the city temporarily closes certain fire stations on certain days and times to save money) it took them longer to get to my house because they had to come from a further station. If you live in Atlanta, this could happen to you too, so if you have a moment, please express your opinion about this matter to City Hall and whoever our new mayor turns out to be.