Our Fire

[April]

How many of you have had a class from me where I talk to you about keeping files of your pictures and scrapbook pages at someone else's house in case of a disaster? This is a reminder to DO IT! Save your precious memories in two places. Your house and someone elses.

We had an oil fire at our house on Monday. It was so scary. I hurried and got my fire extinguisher out but I was so scared I couldn't figure out how to use it fast enough. I tried to call 911 but my fingers wouldn't work. I yelled at my kids to get out of the house but they were scared so instead of trying to get the fire out I took them outside. By the time I was outside (all of this in just a few seconds) I was too scared to go inside again. I ran to two neighbors doors and pounded and yelled for them to call 911 then I sat on the curb and watched my house burn. It was horrifying thinking of all the precious things I might lose. The fire engine closest to my house was at another fire so I had to wait extra long for anyone to come. The police and an ambulance showed up first and all of us sat listening to sirens coming from all over. We began to think they couldn't find my house. Finally after about 10 minutes they arrived. It then took another 5 minutes for them to be ready to enter the house. It felt like forever.

Fortunately we were incredibly blessed. The fire only burned the stove, microwave, surrounding cabinets and sheet rock. I still can't believe it. The firefighters said that a fire burning that long could have easily taken the entire upstairs. I just can't believe how lucky we are. I'm so grateful we are all safe and that we have good insurance.

My little boy is the coolest. He knew exactly what to do and dropped to the ground and slid out of the house. I can't tell you how proud I am of him.

Here's how it started...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/oakapr/IMG_0538lr.jpg

Here is all of the burned area...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/oakapr/IMG_0501lr.jpg

This picture absolutely still blows my mind. How could a fire that burned for 15 minutes not have touched these papers right next to it? Amazing! I think it's a sign that we deserve a night out :) This was a gift from our babysitter... such a sweet gift.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/oakapr/babysitting.jpg

A neighbor asked if he could get our picture as we waited for the firemen to finish up. Some may think this is weird but my scrapbooking mind said "sure!". By this time I wasn't crying anymore. I was scared but felt under control. I had a lot of friends and family with me.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v473/oakapr/trucks.jpg


All that I could think of during this time was of all my journals, scrapbooks and pictures. It was so sad to think I could lose them. Thank goodness for digital scrapbooking and how easy it is to store our pages on disk at other peoples homes, right? Get it done.

[April]

By the way… I’m a hypocrite. I don’t have my pictures or scrapbook pages saved on disk at anyone else’s house. I’ve always believed it was so important but I still never took the time. I will take the time now. It is so important to me and I am so grateful I get a second chance.

[Misty]

I am so glad you are all safe and all your memories are intact. My dad has been a fireman for almost 30 years now so I have heard all the horror stories. My brother's house actually burned down a couple of years ago and they lost basically everything. It is very devastating. I don't know how your fire burned that long and did such little damage. I've seen the aftermath of a lot of fires and most do a lot of damage in just minutes. Someone was definitely watching out for you! Again, I am so glad you and your family are safe and thanks for the reminder to protect our precious memories!

Misty

[Barb]

Holy cow, April. Those are some mighty solid cabinets in your kitchen. Kudos to the cabinet maker. I'm so glad that it wasn't so much worse, and we all know that it easily could be.

I agree, angels were looking over you for sure! Big hugs to you.

[Ursula Page]

April...that is so scary. GREAT reminder...thanks and (((HUGS))) for you! Hope you get it redone quickly.

[Cory]

Oh wow April! You were lucky. It is a mess but so much was spared! So glad everyone is OK. :) Make sure you post pictures of your remodeled kitchen, OK? ;)

[deB Perry]

Oh wow April...I was really praising the Lordthat day when you told us that you or the kiddos didn't get hurt...and I remember trying to picture the whole event in my head. I remember photos of your kitchen you posted one time way back...

but seeing it today just really puts it in perspective of how God protected you guys... I will go as far as saying that it's a miracle that more damage wasn't done....and I never use the word 'miracle' lightly. I look at that microwave though...and it amazes me how hot a fire is to be able to melt things as strong as that.

thanks for posting these.

[Candice]

April, I am so glad that you are okay and that the damage is so minor compared to what it could have been!

[Greta Hammond]

That is just crazy how it didn't burn more than it did. So glad you are all okay.

[Sharon L.]

April...I am so thankful that there was very little damage considering what could have happened...and most importantly...that you are all safe!

[Dana Smith]

OMG April!!!!! How scary!!!! This is such an eye opener!!! TFS!

[Torm]

ohmygoodness! April!
And it is a good reminder. I have everything saved to my external and I use it daily...but I've been telling my hubby for a few weeks now that I really need a copy of my external to save over at my dad's house!
Scary stuff!!! And I'm so glad it wasn't any worse!!!
(And I totally would have done the by the truck shot...we're tracking with ya there, man!)

[Kelly]

I'm so glad you're ok... and you're right. I need to get my stuff backed up and in a secure second location... : )
-kelly

[Kayla]

Oooooh my gosh! Wow, April! That is so so scary. I'm so glad that you and your family are safe!

[jessie]

HUGS April!!!
That is terrifying - and there was definitely someone watching over you that day! Amazing that with all that happened you didn't sustain more damage - WOW.

[mindy]

So good that you are all safe. What a blessing! I'm also glad your photos and memories were safe as well, that is the one thing anyone would miss if all were lost. Good advice.

[ConnieTameling]

April, I don't know you at all yet, but just wanted to say how wonderful it is that your family is safe and your printed and digital memories were not damaged. Thanks for sharing this, I upload photos to an online site (Snapfish) to keep another copy somewhere beside my home, but this sure is a great reminder to back everything up.

I hope the cleanup is quick and stressfree.

Blessings.

[jlajla]

Goodness - how scary. Glad everything/everybody was ok!

[brookiewookie]

April, I'm so sorry!! That is CRAZY. I'm so glad that everyone is okay and that you didn't lose any of those precious things!!! Good luck with everything and I hope it all gets fixed soon. That makes me want to back up everything RIGHT NOW!!

[Angie I]

April,
I am sorry to here about your house fire. Sooo glad you are safe.

This may be a wierd question but would you back up on cd or dvd? I am not sure of the difference other than a dvd holds more mb right? Angie I.

[Keith]

....This may be a wierd question but would you back up on cd or dvd? I am not sure of the difference other than a dvd holds more mb right? Angie I.


CD or DVD would not make a difference. You are right a CD will hold about 700 MB and a DVD will hold about 4700 MB. If I were you I would just use whatever was the easiest for you. And 700 MB is a lot of scrapbook pages anyways, but if you outgrow that you can use multiple CD's or start using DVD's.

My one comment is don't use the real cheap CD's. The cheapest ones you see are usually just silver colored. Often the top and the bottom look the same (maybe you have seen this). It is my experience that after a few years the coating that holds the data comes off them or is damaged very easily. Just spend the few extra dollars for a brand that you recognize.

[April]

Keith, aren't we buying the cheap ones? Do I need to buy better ones for the backups?

[blmcewan]

Thank heavens you and your family are all A-OK and that damage was limited and not any worse.

On the topic of of backing things up I thought I would add a few additional thoughts. I do training for a major enterprise here in Utah that covers the entire state. I specifically work for the Information Systems division and as I train and work with various people I get to see and hear about all sorts of things. Redundancy is key to saving all of the billions critical pieces of information generated in our organization. We have a major data center (place for lots of connected computers that store everything) however, there is a duplicate redundant backup in another city, and I hear they are looking at a 3rd. These are for generally "LIVE" switchovers when something major happens and there are regular tape/disk backups that are stored deep inside vaults along the Wasatch Front.

Same things can minimally be applied to us and our computer systems especially our photos and pages: Here's what I tell students in class and what we are trying to do more diligently at home.

1) Buy a good Fire Safe: plenty of room for a good stack of important papers and backup disks/tapes/hard drives; should also be higher rated to withstand certain temperatures for xx amount of time and some are also waterproof. Also locate it away as much as possible from possible common cause of house fires, i.e. furnace, water heater areas, kitchens etc. remember that fire does spread fast and the safe will buy you some time hopefully long enough for the fire department to get there and start hosing things down.

2) While most everyone has a CD/DVD burner nowadays here's something else to consider: BUY an external Hard Drive or two. These are now very affordable, especially if you shop online or your local wholesale club. We bought a 500GB drive for around $220 This is way plenty of room for backing up your entire computer, inlcuding all your supplies, pics, layouts, etc. It's generally plug it in and it installs itself and the backup software needed to backup some or all of your machine. Then you don't have to worry about switching out disk or how many files will fit on xx number of disks, you just select the source area(s) and the destination and go (I usually start mine when I go to bed so as not to interfere with productivity) And yes, hard drives can fail, but so to can CD's and DVD's. With either every once and a while you will want to do a backup with the verify option to make sure the data was copied correctly and as Keith mentioned for disk, stick with name brands and you'll be better off.

3) Put the Hard Drive with backup(s) in the fire safe and yes, if possible keep another one off-site at someone else's house--short term investment will benefit you in time saved in doing the backups and the what-if unknown we hope never happens like unfortunately had the little experience.

4) Be diligent about backing up regularly; weekly for some but probably no longer than monthly for most and by all means PUT IT BACK IN THE SAFE.

Bottom-line: Fire-proof safes and external hard drives can make a great pairing for saving our precious digital lives!!

[jessie97]

Oh my gosh April. How scary. I am so glad and surprised the it didn't burn more than it did.

[Lori Buford]

Would you believe that I just came home with an external harddrive TODAY!!!!! And a new package of DVDs to copy my photos to. Plus, I intend on printing most, if not all, of my photos and putting them in regular albums. Surely, I'll have all my bases covered now, right!?!?!?

[April]

Good for you Lori! My neighbor showed me his new fire extinguishers today. That made me happy. At least I'm helping other people be safe.

[Keith]

Keith, aren't we buying the cheap ones? Do I need to buy better ones for the backups?

Right now we are using Imation and Verbatim, I am happy with both of those brands. The ones that I have seen the problems with are the generic ones, usually no name on them at all, and often you can't tell which side is up or down. I can't think of any CD/DVD's that provide the areas to write on with a marker that I have seen go bad unless it was from scratches

[Katja Kromann]

I am so happy you are all safe and nothing precious was lost April :)

[ErinBoBerin]

Oh my! I'm so sorry April, but I'm glad you all are okay and you didn't loose anything.

I had a dream that my house was on fire a couple of weeks ago, and that alone was definently motivation for me to back up everything "off-site". I just discovered an awesome tool for backing up with mozilla and gmail. I'll start another thread with the details because it's super cool.

[Keith]

...I just discovered an awesome tool for backing up with mozilla and gmail. I'll start another thread with the details because it's super cool.

I have been using gmail for backup for awhile, I think it is a great idea. And actually to back up photos, PSD files, and that type of thing it is a great fit. Start a thread and I will be sure to add what I can do it.