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House Fire on August 16, 2006
Details below...
| MJ At 18 Years, Called "Emmy" By Her Two Nieces |
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| Hannah(L) And Hayle Stout, Ages Then: 5 And 2 |
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| Courtesy of www.roguefaction.com |
House Fire on August 16, 2006
At about 7:30 pm on the evening of August 16th, My son, Bobby, was the only
person home and was on his computer when he heard glass breaking in the garage. He later said it sounded like someone
threw a bottle at the garage. He immediately went outside to investigate and found a 10 foot-diameter hole in the roof
and flames shooting 25 feet ino the air.
He immediately ran inside the house, dialed 9-1-1, then disconnected the cables
on the computer that he had inherited from his late sister, Margaret. He ran outside with it and ran back in to attempt to
grab my computer, which serves as the hub for my 5-node home network. By then, the flames were getting to be too hot, so he
ran outside for his own safety right as the Fire Department arrived.
During the first minute they attacked the fire, they apparently poked a hol
in the plaster between the garage and the attic over the main part of the house. When that occurred, a large explosion started
from that point and went away from the garage and exited at the rear of the house (over the patio door) in a "horizontal"
explosion.
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"Before" Photos
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The investigator said later that three things really saved our house:
1)The plaster between the
garage and the main part of the house did its job and acted as a great firewall. Here's a photo:
| Plaster Firewall Between Garage and Bedrooms |
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| Held the fire at bay for almost 30 minutes! |
The investigator said that this firewall withstood temperatures around 13-1500
degrees for almost 30 minutes before the Fire Department was called. He said it was a very "HOT" fire once it really got going.
The fuel source in this area was a large pile of about 25-30 large plastic trash bags that
contained a lot of Linda and MJ's old "extra large" clothes that were going to be donated to the Goodwill.
Furniture was also stored out in the garage, and all of it was lost, as well as a lot of
MJ's personal effects. That was the hardest thing about this whole disaster: most of MJ's personal stuff, such as diaries,
yearbooks, and beauty pageant trophies, were lost...
2)Since the hole in the 2-day-old
roof was in the garage, all of the smoke smell went straight up, instead of coming into the main part of the house,
3)The explosion was a "horizontal"
explosion, rather than vertical. Thus, the rafters and roof sections over the patio door were lifted straight up about 12"
and allowed the force of the blast to exit through the ensuing crack in the roofline. The only damage internally was a couple
of popped nails near the patio door. The investigator ruled out natural gas, in favor of the RARE "superheated particles scenario"
that need an ignition source until the Fire Department poked a hole through the firewall. Here's a photo of the damaged roofline:
| Roofline Over The Patio Door |
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| Explosion exited here, boards were pushed OUT. |
Roofline Explosion Damage
Note that the joists have been split, and that the force of the explosion went
outwards from here. The roofline was lifted about 12" from here all the way to the back of this photo over to the kitchen
wall.
The boards over the patio door were installed about 2 hours before this photo
was taken, at the insistance of the Insurance Company, to keep looters and looky-lou's out of the house until it could be
packed out and the re-construction began. All of the ceiling joists on this end of the house required replacement, but others
near the garage only required some odor-eating special paint to be sprayed over them. Elsewhere, we were spared a lot of expense
and time of replacing the entire 2-day-old roof.
| Garage and Bedrooms Looking Northeast |
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| Note the un-used shingles still on the roof from 2 days earlier |
View Looking Northeast
There are still shingles on the roof from the recently-completed roof job. The roof completely
collapsed and deflected the very intense heat straight up like a chimney. The heat damaged the neighbor's trees on
the South and North sides of our house. When measured later, the furthest tree that sustained damage was over 120 feet away.
There were 2 cars parked in the driveway: Bobby's Cadillac Sedan de Ville, and my Chevy
Z-24. Both were burned up. Bummer... The grass was also killed in the front yard that
adjoined the garage and part of the South lawn died, as well.
| Remnants of My Recording Studio |
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| Garage is on the other side of the wall on the right side |
Recording Studio
This is what's left of my digital recording studio. When the firemen arrived and started
to go through the house to make sure it was cleared, the saw all of this expensive equipment in there and gathered it all
into the middle of the room. They threw a fireproof red tarp over it while they fought the fire. The only damage to my equipment
was some of the "blow-in" insulation that fell through the ceiling and drifted onto the keyboard and amps. All that was required
to salvage it was an air hose that Service Master used to blow it all off.
My acoustic Guitar (inherited by Linda's late uncle, Dan Cody) wound up with a 2" hole in
the back, probably incurred when they gathered it all up and bumped it against something. I have since bought a new Yamaha
FX-370 electric acoustic to replace it with the insurance money. The insurance company let me keep the damaged one, too, although
there is no tone left in it anymore. The Spruce "back" of the guitar acts like the guitar's "speaker", so it can never
sound right again.
| This used to be a 1996 Z-24 |
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| When the gas tank blew, the car was lifted 3 feet into the air |
1998 Z-24
This car had been off the road for over a year while body repairs were being completed and
an engine "upgrade" was done. The repairs were completed one month prior to the fire, and I was going to get it registered
and insured on my next time off cycle. I was on my way home and I was only 2 days away from home when the fire broke
out. I was really looking forward to driving my "souped-up" hotrod, because it was so much fun to drive even without the engine
upgrade.
| Probable Cause of the Fire |
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| Light Switch by Garage Door |
The Probable Cause of The Fire
Although the investigator never did come to a definite conclusion as to what
caused the fire, he did know WHERE it started. He kept asking, over and over, "What was here? What
was there?" He believes that this light switch, next to the garage door started the fire.
It happened during a ferocious heat wave in The Valley, with temps in the 115's
or so. This switch went to a single light socket in the very center ceiling in the garage, and there was also a wired extension
from the light socket to an electrical outlet on the back wall where a freezer (packed FULL of meat) was plugged-in.
Alghough the light was never on, the switch had to remain on to power the freezer, which was plugged into an extension cord
that ran from the outlet to the freezer, which was located on the opposite side of the garage door. He thinks that the switch shorted out and threw sparks onto all of those bags of clothes, because he
knew the origin of the fire was where the bags clothes were. The fire took off from there...
| The Freezer |
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| Packed Full of Meat |
The Freezer
This is the freezer that was overworked during the heat wave that probably caused
the light switch to short out and throw sparks onto the bags of clothes to cause the ensuing fire. We had been filling it
up over the previous few months in anticipation of my starting a Mobile Document Shredding business at the end of August.
We wanted a freezer full of food in case we would have to go for a while with limited income while the business grew. The
insurance eventually replaced everything that was damaged or destroyed, including the meat in the freezer. It sure smelled
sweet (Ugh!) after 3 days in that very hot sun. (Remember, we were in the middle of an intense heat wave...) Files were everywhere.
Service Master showed up in Bio-suits to remove this mess. Yeech!
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"After" Photos
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| Exterior Looking Northwest |
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Exterior View-Front
This is the view looking towards the Northwest, showing: 1) new driveway (it cracked), 2)
New A/C and heater on the roof which replaced a water cooler, 3) new garage, 4) new roof (again..), 5)primered exterior
surfaces.
| Explosion Damage-Post Repairs |
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| No Split Rafters Here! |
Post-Repairs, Explosion Damage
This is a view of over the patio door, where the main force of the explosion exited and
lifted the roof about 12". Note that some of the rafters are the original ones. When the contractor started removing the roof
prior to repairs, he noticed that some of the custom-made rafters and trusses were not damaged, which saved us some time and
money during the repairs.
| Kitchen Prior to the Remodel Job |
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| This Was Stripped Clear to the Wall Studs |
Kitchen Prior to the Remodel
This a view looking towards the front door (in background) before the workers stripped
the plaster off of the walls and all that was left was wall studs.
I will post the final finished version soon. There is more cabinet space, 6 more
feet of countertop, and tile on all the countertops. There were also some cabinets added in the laundry room (above the washer
and dryer) to store detergent and towels.
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