Was riding my bicycle home from work and saw a house burn down :(

S

supernovae

Line Up and Wait
Joined
Dec 31, 2012
Messages
509
Location
Austin
Display Name
Display name:
supernovae
I saw smoke rising from a house, almost looked like a backyard fire initially, thought someone was burning leaves (not allowed, but its Texas..). As I rode by I could feel the heat and knew something was terribly wrong. A dude on a motorcycle stopped and immediate ran to the house on the left and opened their door and started yelling at them to get out, I stayed on the right side and made sure that family got out. The house in the middle went from a little grey smoke coming out top to full blown fire in about 2-3 minutes.. if not faster.

Police showed up quick, fire department took a minute and got setup pretty quick, sent in some people through the backyard and back door and they did pull out one perished soul.

Once I got home, gave the wife and kids a hug and checked my smoke detectors! This weekend i'll do a fire drill with the kids. What a wakeup call!

Some photos I took on my iphone linked here.. (just of fire itself..)

http://imgur.com/a/BzaoA

Check those smoke detectors!!
 
I do hvac for a living and ask every customer about their smoke, combustible gas and carbon monoxide detectors(if gas burning equipment). I recommend a detector at furnace, dryer, electrical panel and near kitchen. I have nine in my 1900 sq ft home including crawl space and attic, all interconnected. I also recommend annual hvac check, dryer and refrigerator cleaning. I have two fire extinguishers in garage and three in house. I have a 50' fire hose upstairs with 1/4 turn ss ball valve. I have seen too many fires and explosions around here I guess.
 
Sadly I found out it was a pretty well known artists wife who died. He's an artist who does wood carving and was known for doing the fine art on the tip of a lead pencil. House was completely destroyed.
 
Saw a house on fire while walking home once. Upon sprinting there to render whatever feeble assistance I could I found it surrounded by firemen. The house was in need of demolition, and fire crews used it as a training exercise.
 
Fires are scary. Several years ago lightening struck our house and set it on fire at 3 am. Fire truck took ten minutes to get here, and by then one bathroom and part of the garage burned down. It was almost funny that it burned down the ugliest room in the house, so we got a new bathroom out of it. It could have been much worse. The lightening was so loud, no one could have slept through that, and the dogs made sure we knew something was wrong.
 
My mothers house was set on fire by some faulty electrical work (which itself was done in response to a tornado strike). Burned it up pretty good. It was that event that made my father's Alzheimer's obvious.

Burned up all my stuff in the attic, too. Strangely liberating. There was a time when everything I owned fit in the back of a small pickup truck, including my motorcycle. Ahh, the days.
 
I was flying over a muddy river one time, similar situation..
akz8up.jpg

4uhsoo.jpg

2469xmd.jpg
 
We had a floor outlet short out once. The cat went ape **** and we couldn't figure out what was wrong - until we smelled smoke. Then about then the smoke alarms started going off, my dad grabbed the fire extinguisher and got it out, then called 911.
 
We had an electrical fire at my house once when I was young. My parents were about to pull into our neighborhood when they stopped to let a fire truck by. They followed the truck into the neighborhood and were shocked when it stopped in front of our house and the firemen all ran out of the truck and into our yard!
 
PBristolJr said:
I was flying over a muddy river one time, similar situation..
Click to expand...

Joe the CFI and I were returning from some dual when I saw the fire on my left side of the plane.

"There's a fire near the airport."
"No. The airport is on fire."

I landed and we parked as far as possible from the burning FBO. We watched the fire department attack the blaze.

The shop had a fire started by a Makita wall wart.
 
mikea said:
Joe the CFI and I were returning from some dual when I saw the fire on my left side of the plane.

"There's a fire near the airport."
"No. The airport is on fire."

I landed and we parked as far as possible from the burning FBO. We watched the fire department attack the blaze.

The shop had a fire started by a Makita wall wart.
Click to expand...

I had a wall wart melt once. Luckily it was right next to my bed and caught it prior to actually turning to flame. But it was mere seconds before I was leaving the apartment to go to work.


Sent from my iPhone
using Tapatalk
 
dell30rb said:
We had an electrical fire at my house once when I was young. My parents were about to pull into our neighborhood when they stopped to let a fire truck by. They followed the truck into the neighborhood and were shocked when it stopped in front of our house and the firemen all ran out of the truck and into our yard!
Click to expand...

I worked with a guy one time who, upon arriving home from overseas, found his house on fire. It was rather minor (a poor job of insulating a chimney) - and he was able to put it out. Quite the unpleasant surprise.

Dave
 
cavmedic said:
I had a wall wart melt once. Luckily it was right next to my bed and caught it prior to actually turning to flame. But it was mere seconds before I was leaving the apartment to go to work.


Sent from my iPhone
using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

I had an electrical surprise just yesterday. It being necessary to provide a source of 48 Volts DC to test a downconverter, I used what I had - a couple of 12 Volt DC supplies and a couple of batteries. When I got it all hooked up and turned on the power, several of the in-between wires and the power cord of one on the supplies went up in smoke! In the latter it was the green ground wire that got hot. Interestingly, nothing other than the wire was damaged by this episode - and the breaker supplying the outlet I was using did not trip (I pulled the smoking cord to stop the show). I later replaced the damaged wires and completed the test without further drama.

Dave
 
cavmedic said:
I had a wall wart melt once. Luckily it was right next to my bed and caught it prior to actually turning to flame. But it was mere seconds before I was leaving the apartment to go to work.


Sent from my iPhone
using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Local electrical code here now requires all new residential electrical installations to have an arc fault interrupter breaker feeding any bedroom receptacles. I paid $78 each for two of them a while ago. They detect small, irregular arcing. The arcing of commutator brushes in a hair dryer, for instance, won't trigger it, but a fusing wall-wart sure would.

Dan
 
Horrible that you had to see that knowing afterwards that somebody died in there.

This girl, however, doesn't appear to be feeling too badly...
34609623.jpg
 
Dan Thomas said:
Local electrical code here now requires all new residential electrical installations to have an arc fault interrupter breaker feeding any bedroom receptacles. I paid $78 each for two of them a while ago. They detect small, irregular arcing. The arcing of commutator brushes in a hair dryer, for instance, won't trigger it, but a fusing wall-wart sure would.

Dan
Click to expand...

Actually, I suspect your code requires AFCI to protect all 15 and 20A 120V circuits feeding any kind of outlet (receptacles, lighting, fans, etc...) in bedrooms. That is how the 2005 NEC reads. In 2008, they expanded it to include just about every room in the house that wasn't already covered by GFCI: family rooms, dining rooms, living rooms, parlors, libraries, dens, bedrooms, sunrooms, recreation rooms, closets, hallways, or similar rooms or areas.
 
flyingron said:
Actually, I suspect your code requires AFCI to protect all 15 and 20A 120V circuits feeding any kind of outlet (receptacles, lighting, fans, etc...) in bedrooms. That is how the 2005 NEC reads. In 2008, they expanded it to include just about every room in the house that wasn't already covered by GFCI: family rooms, dining rooms, living rooms, parlors, libraries, dens, bedrooms, sunrooms, recreation rooms, closets, hallways, or similar rooms or areas.
Click to expand...
Nice. What about if your house has a 1960s Zenco electric panel, where you're lucky just to find rebuilt breakers?

I know. New panel.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top