We had a very scary day yesterday. I was finishing my morning coffee and about to get ready to go to Pilates class when I heard a pop-pop-pop sound and smelled an odor that reminded me of when a hairdryer motor goes up. I went upstairs to see if my husband was using the hairdryer but he was still in bed, so I called to him that something was burning. He jumped up and went looking for the source, but couldn’t find anything visible. Meanwhile the house was filling with smoke. I grabbed my phone and called 911 while I got our dog Sunny by the collar and hurried outside, grabbing a puffer coat over my pajamas. Jamie followed me with our other dog Woody, and the fire trucks showed up soon after. All told, three departments and a huge line of firefighting vehicles showed up — city, county, and even Naval Academy!

We were very lucky. An old junction box for our HVAC unit had caught fire. It was part of the original construction of the house and should have been installed with a separate breaker to the HVAC system. Flawed wiring + three decades of degradation of a connection = fire hazard. The junction box is in the crawl space under my office and the guest room. The firefighters were able to identify the source quickly with thermal devices which meant that they didn’t have to tear through tons of drywall and flooring to find it — in the past, they would have had to hack into many yards of drywall to find the source, tearing up rooms.

So there is now a gaping hole in the hallway at my office door and in the guest room closet, and we have a pile of soggy carpet, insulation, drywall and plywood outside, but none of our belongings were damaged as far as I can tell. (The firefighters were extremely respectful of our property even in the hurry to find and extinguish the fire.) The house smells of smoke and we may need to do some rounds of cleaning to eliminate that, but that’s small potatoes compared to what might have been.

Our electrician came right away yesterday and got our power back on (just no HVAC power) with some space heaters running since temps are in the 30s at night here now. We were able to sleep in our own, albeit smoky-smelling, bed last night, after burgers at a nearby restaurant and a couple of stiff drinks.

We have filed an insurance claim, and now have to get contractors to do repairs. We bought four old-school battery-powered smoke detectors because our alarm didn’t go off until the fire department was already here! We will be talking with our security company to figure out why that alarm was so delayed.

The fire lieutenant told us we were very fortunate that we were home and caught it quickly. It’s the kind of fire that can go up very fast. He also noted that the solid construction of our post and beam house helped too — the beam closest to the fire source is quite damaged, but he said that newer homes are usually constructed with lesser-quality beams and the damage would be far worse in a newer house.

It was such an emotional experience. I’m still a little shaky today. We felt drained and overwhelmed, but last night our prevailing emotion was gratitude. I’m so thankful we were home and awake, that it didn’t happen while we were out with the dogs at home alone, or when we had planned to go to NY next week, when our housesitter would have been here with the dogs!

I sit here in the dining room today, having been able to make coffee and breakfast, looking at our Christmas tree, and most importantly, looking at my husband and our dogs, and my heart is so full. Countless friends and neighbors reached out to us, our community first responders were wonderful, and our home is damaged but intact. What matters most is that we are safe. Everything else is just stuff.

Please check your fire detection systems, or add them if you don’t have them. Make sure you have a plan in case of fire. I have realized that many of my friends have had house fires of varying severity — it’s so common! And it’s so scary. I hope you all stay safe this holiday season.