About that fire
Officials think they’ve found the cause of that horrific Christmas house fire I wrote about a few days ago:
A Christmas morning fire that killed a couple and three of their grandchildren was accidentally started by fireplace embers that had been discarded near a first-floor entryway, officials said Tuesday.
The officials also said it wasn’t clear if the home had working smoke detectors. Stamford Mayor Michael Pavia called the fire a “tragic accident,” not the result of foul play.
Sometime between 3 a.m. and 3:30 a.m., a friend staying in the home put fireplace ashes in a bag and left it either in or outside a mudroom and trash enclosure attached to the rear of the house, said Barry Callahan, Stamford’s fire marshal. The fire was reported just after 4:40 a.m.
“The fire entered the house quickly and spread throughout the first floor and up two interior vertical openings, trapping the occupants on the upper floors,” Callahan said.
There are other heartbreaking details in the story, if you go to the link.
[ADDENDUM: See also this for a more complete story.]
Several years ago, after all the fireworks had been set off, I gathered up all the ‘safe and sane’ pieces, which had been sitting in the street, with ample time to have cooled down, and put them in the garbage can.
The next morning, my neighbor called. The two plastic garbage cans were completely gone, a small puddle of plastic remained with a tiny plume of smoke. In this case, it was similar to imploding a building, somehow it all stayed in one place, the vegetation surrounding the area was not touched.
It was a good lesson – which could have had horrific results, as this one did. Soon after, a massive house fire made the news, the owners had, like the one you mention, put ashes in a plastic or paper bag and put it out on the deck.
Always use a metal container. Never plastic or paper. Moral of the story. And my heart goes out to this family, especially this Mom.
…put fireplace ashes in a bag and left it either in or outside a mudroom and trash enclosure…
That’s just weird. WTH would anyone clean out the fireplace ashes between 3:00 and 3:30 a.m. and put them in a bag?
How the hell does a house costing two million dollars not have guaranteed working smoke detectors?
“There are other heartbreaking details in the story, if you go to the link.”
Not a ringing endorsement. No thanks.
SteveH: it was being renovated, and hardwired smoke detectors were due to be installed but hadn’t been installed yet.
The house was not supposed to be lived in until the work was completed. See this.
Very sad details there, including the fact that the mother’s boyfriend (the contractor) tried to save the girls and got separated from them, and then tried to go back in but firefighters had to restrain him. It sounds as though firefighters came close to saving some of the victims (they managed to get into the house and were searching for them), but time ran out.
Incredibly sad.
This is tragic on so many levels. That poor woman – my daughter and I can’t see how she would survive this, in the long-term, in any kind of good mental shape. She has lost her children, her parents, and her home, all horribly. Very likely she has also lost any amiable relationship with her ex-husband, with the gentleman described as her friend – since from the news stories he seems to have been the one responsible for the bag o’ashes – and Christmas from now on will be a succession of ghastly reminders.
MS Badger might very well have the steadfast faith and patience of Job – but if not, I can’t see that any amount of talking to a therapist (and with apologies to Neo) will ever be of help to her.
Someone who has suffered such a horrendous series of losses; I can see how the temptation to off themselves out of pain and despair could be just barely overcome, but I can also understand how such a person might not be particularly careful about living.
Sgt. Mom: I agree. It is almost imaginable to see how a person could go on living afterward.
And yet people are often resilient. Those who have lost whole families in war, or the Holocaust, or tornadoes or earthquakes often manage to find the strength to carry on. Philosophy or religion can help (although it can also happen that such a tragedy can cause a person to reject religion). Sometimes it’s easier (although nothing about it is the least bit “easy”) when it’s a natural disaster or outside force causing the catastrophe and there’s nothing the person could have done to save the others. In the case in question here, though, the opportunity for self-blame and self-recrimination is so vast it is truly hard to see how it wouldn’t be overwhelming.
I hope she gets a lot of help from church, therapy, friends, surviving family—everything and everybody who might be of service.
I’m not a big one for mediums. But I’ve often noticed that one of their functions—whether you believe they communicate with the dead or not—is to relieve at least a portion of the guilt and pain of the living by telling the survivor the loved ones are okay, forgive them, love them, and that there’s nothing the survivor could have done, and to go on with life and be happy.
Thanks, Neo – yes, people can be amazingly resiliant, especially when they have been affected by something like the Boxing Day tsunami. You can look back on and accept as fate and chance, an act of nature and go on living with strength and grace.
I hope that MS Badger does have the strength and resilance, drawn from whatever religious and philosophical source she has at her command. This is just such devastating blow – almost Sophoclean.
Your insight about mediums? I know another indy author who wrote about the Fox sisters – that was what survivors wanted, and what mediums like the Fox sisters and their metaphysical offspring offered – most especially after the Civil War and again after WWI. Survivors will look for comfort, and find it where they will.
How terribly sad. My SO gets upset when I close the flue the next day – he’s concerned about possible embers. Needless to say, we always have a healthy amount of ashes in the fireplace for weeks on end. I cannot imagine someone cleaning the fireplace at 3 AM.
A perfect example of dysfunctionb as normal
that is the inability to live in the real world and know what to do and even the basics of living and functioning outside of a narrow being
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