Wealthy Affiliate Saved My House!

Yes, you heard me, Wealthy Affiliate saved my house!

This past Thursday, Dec. 22, the rest of my family were out finishing the rest of their Christmas shopping and I decided to stay at home and work on my websites. I was the only one home and things were progressing nicely when I started to hear some noises from our outside screened-in porch, which is just off our kitchen. I ignored it initially but then I finally decided to check to see if someone was in the screened-in porch because I didn't know what the noises were. As I opened the door to the screened-in porch I was met with a wave of heat and smoke, so much so that some of my hair was burnt. There was a fire in my screened-in porch and there were flames everywhere!!! I quickly closed the door, found a plastic jug and filled it with water from the sink. I then opened the door again and poured the water onto the fire, but it didn't do much.

I knew this method was going to take too long and my house was going to burn down so I ran out the patio door with the plastic jug. Our hoses were put away for the winter but thankfully I have a hot tub outside. I opened the door to the screened-in porch from the backyard and then I opened the lid to the hot tub. In my bare feet (bear in mind that we've got lots of snow on the ground), I filled the jug with water, ran into the screened-in porch, poured the water on the fire and repeated. After about 8 trips between the hot tub and the screened-in porch, the fire was put out.

Unfortunately, the house was filled with smoke and the smoke detectors were wailing away (good to know they worked). I opened every window in the house and eventually after about an hour the house was cleared of the smoke and eventually the smoke detectors went quiet.

All the wicker furniture and cushions and blankets were destroyed but thankfully no one was hurt and all the pets survived as well. The floor has a burnt area and the plastic that we put around the window screens to keep the snow out is all melted. The walls of the screened-in porch are all covered in a dark soot and so are the wood panels on the ceiling. At some point we will have to get those professionally cleaned, but it's too close to Christmas. We'll wait until after the holiday season to get that work done.

Here's a picture of the damage not too longer after it happened:

I'm just grateful that there was no further damage. In some ways, I'm grateful to Wealthy Affiliate for being home and working on my sites. If I wasn't home, I'm sure that I wouldn't have a house to be in over the Christmas holidays and my pets would certainly have perished. So while there is still a faint smell of smoke still lingering in my house, things could have been a lot worse. I still have a house to celebrate Christmas in with my family.

Merry Christmas everyone and all the best in 2017!

Shawn