bonedaddy
Member
On Monday June 20th we had a fire at the house that resulted in the loss of the Garage and Laundry Room, unfortunately our 2015 Willys JKU “Wilma” was parked in the garbage when it happened.
Everyone is safe and sound, no one was injured…
We were just hanging at the house, my wife had just gotten home from shopping, through the garage about a half dozen time bringing the groceries in, nothing was out of the ordinary… she has home for bout 20min maybe, baby was sleeping in her crib a few rooms over from the laundry room and we were in our bedroom across the house with our 3y old trying on her dance costumes. Smelled something like hot wires or plastic, went to investigate… could;t find anything strange until I flicked the laundry room light on and saw smoke coming from around the inside garage door, yanked it open and was greeted by a thick black cloud that blinded me and chocked me out. I screamed for my wife, but nothing came out - I tried to reach around inside the door to find the garage door opener or light but it was just too much. Slammed the door and screamed again to my wife to call 911 get the baby our of the house, I ran and got out 3 yr old and got her out - my wife ran them over to the neighbor who had just come out and then both of us frantically ran around trying to grab anything we thought of … yeah, amazing what doesn’t come to mind during a situation such as this…
Fire department came within 10 minutes and went in through he house and started fighting it back into the garage, they sawed the garage door open outside and they started hitting it from there as well… all we could do was sit back and watch out house and jeep burn not knowing what was gone and what was not… house filled with think black smoke, so think you couldn’t even see the firefighter once they entered the house… scariest day of my life…
The fire department was amazing, response time which seemed like forever to me was within 10 minutes… they said it i had;t found the fire and called when we did we would have lost the entire side of the house or maybe even the whole thing… scary to think the baby was sleeping 10-15 feet away from the laundry room and if our boys had been home there wall backs up to the garage firewall and the laundry room…
All could have been much worse and we could out blessings…not we are trying to pick up the pieces of our lives, figure out what belongings are worth saving and cleaning and what we should just forget.
The rest of the house is enticed, but the water, smoke and soot damage was almost as devastating as the fire it’s self… nothing of the kids they can have, some clothing has been cleaned as well as it can be cleaned and what survive the laundry, some still smells faintly of firewood… electronics they say are done, it’s just a shitty time…
Wallers take note of this: Learned a valuable lesson in insurance and just how “under covered” we really were. Such as not having rental on our insurance policy and paying out of pocket for a car for the past 4 weeks, Not having replacement on the Jeep, just fair market value and most of all not having enough “Personal property” insurance to cover the contents of the home… oh and my favorite, that Allstate does not insure add-ons to a vehicle, just $1000 towards anything “that they feel” enhances the value… hard valuable lesson indeed that everyone should learn from our mistakes because the situation sucks, but once you find out in the middle of it all you are totally fucked with insurance the rest of the reality of it is crushing…
Cause of the fire has not been able to be determined, they had ruled the Jeep out because it had;t been run in 17 hours, but after there 4th inspection of the garage they have decided to try an seem if the Jeep could be the culprit and getting Chrysler involved. Still waiting for Allstate to finish picking around and get us our money so we can move on… I mean it’s only been a month! They still haven’t removed Wilma from the garage, hopefully this week seeing we have not been able to go through the garage and finish out fire list for insurance, just by memory…
So we are living with my in-laws, in two bedrooms, all six of us… they are looking for a rental to accommodate us and the time frame of 8 months to a year for the construction process…
and thats where we are as of now…
Does;t look like we will have another rig by the End of Summer Run, bummed about that, but there is always next time…
I will let you guys know what they find as the cause, if anything - I would like to know just for piece of mind especially if it was the Jeep and how it could catch fire 17 hours after it was parked…
Right after they did there walkthrough and we could get close to the house again...
She was still smoldering in this picture...
While the fire marshal was in there trying to determine the cause...
Laudryroom...
They said if they had been a few minutes later you can see how how the attic was getting and a couple of sections were getting ready to catch...
Every Light fixture and a/c vent looks like this, crazy the burst like patters around all the lights in the house...
along the baseboards throughout the house there is a thick black outline from the soot traveling down the inside of the walls...
My boys room - for perspective the back wall is the firewall to the garage and the right side lines the laundryroom... amazing there is so little damage, the firewall did it's job!
Attic had so much heat going through it there was smoke coking out of every soffet, but it actually was hot enough to bubble the paint on out outside light on the opposite corner of the house...
Snuck in the garage one day while checking out the house and snapped these...
All that is left of the engine...
My Jeep shelf, with my recovery gear and Jeep bag...
Everyone is safe and sound, no one was injured…
We were just hanging at the house, my wife had just gotten home from shopping, through the garage about a half dozen time bringing the groceries in, nothing was out of the ordinary… she has home for bout 20min maybe, baby was sleeping in her crib a few rooms over from the laundry room and we were in our bedroom across the house with our 3y old trying on her dance costumes. Smelled something like hot wires or plastic, went to investigate… could;t find anything strange until I flicked the laundry room light on and saw smoke coming from around the inside garage door, yanked it open and was greeted by a thick black cloud that blinded me and chocked me out. I screamed for my wife, but nothing came out - I tried to reach around inside the door to find the garage door opener or light but it was just too much. Slammed the door and screamed again to my wife to call 911 get the baby our of the house, I ran and got out 3 yr old and got her out - my wife ran them over to the neighbor who had just come out and then both of us frantically ran around trying to grab anything we thought of … yeah, amazing what doesn’t come to mind during a situation such as this…
Fire department came within 10 minutes and went in through he house and started fighting it back into the garage, they sawed the garage door open outside and they started hitting it from there as well… all we could do was sit back and watch out house and jeep burn not knowing what was gone and what was not… house filled with think black smoke, so think you couldn’t even see the firefighter once they entered the house… scariest day of my life…
The fire department was amazing, response time which seemed like forever to me was within 10 minutes… they said it i had;t found the fire and called when we did we would have lost the entire side of the house or maybe even the whole thing… scary to think the baby was sleeping 10-15 feet away from the laundry room and if our boys had been home there wall backs up to the garage firewall and the laundry room…
All could have been much worse and we could out blessings…not we are trying to pick up the pieces of our lives, figure out what belongings are worth saving and cleaning and what we should just forget.
The rest of the house is enticed, but the water, smoke and soot damage was almost as devastating as the fire it’s self… nothing of the kids they can have, some clothing has been cleaned as well as it can be cleaned and what survive the laundry, some still smells faintly of firewood… electronics they say are done, it’s just a shitty time…
Wallers take note of this: Learned a valuable lesson in insurance and just how “under covered” we really were. Such as not having rental on our insurance policy and paying out of pocket for a car for the past 4 weeks, Not having replacement on the Jeep, just fair market value and most of all not having enough “Personal property” insurance to cover the contents of the home… oh and my favorite, that Allstate does not insure add-ons to a vehicle, just $1000 towards anything “that they feel” enhances the value… hard valuable lesson indeed that everyone should learn from our mistakes because the situation sucks, but once you find out in the middle of it all you are totally fucked with insurance the rest of the reality of it is crushing…
Cause of the fire has not been able to be determined, they had ruled the Jeep out because it had;t been run in 17 hours, but after there 4th inspection of the garage they have decided to try an seem if the Jeep could be the culprit and getting Chrysler involved. Still waiting for Allstate to finish picking around and get us our money so we can move on… I mean it’s only been a month! They still haven’t removed Wilma from the garage, hopefully this week seeing we have not been able to go through the garage and finish out fire list for insurance, just by memory…
So we are living with my in-laws, in two bedrooms, all six of us… they are looking for a rental to accommodate us and the time frame of 8 months to a year for the construction process…
and thats where we are as of now…
Does;t look like we will have another rig by the End of Summer Run, bummed about that, but there is always next time…
I will let you guys know what they find as the cause, if anything - I would like to know just for piece of mind especially if it was the Jeep and how it could catch fire 17 hours after it was parked…
Right after they did there walkthrough and we could get close to the house again...
She was still smoldering in this picture...
While the fire marshal was in there trying to determine the cause...
Laudryroom...
They said if they had been a few minutes later you can see how how the attic was getting and a couple of sections were getting ready to catch...
Every Light fixture and a/c vent looks like this, crazy the burst like patters around all the lights in the house...
along the baseboards throughout the house there is a thick black outline from the soot traveling down the inside of the walls...
My boys room - for perspective the back wall is the firewall to the garage and the right side lines the laundryroom... amazing there is so little damage, the firewall did it's job!
Attic had so much heat going through it there was smoke coking out of every soffet, but it actually was hot enough to bubble the paint on out outside light on the opposite corner of the house...
Snuck in the garage one day while checking out the house and snapped these...
All that is left of the engine...
My Jeep shelf, with my recovery gear and Jeep bag...
