A Chronology of Tuesday's Fire
Just thankful no one was hurt.
As far as we can tell, this is what happened the day the house burned down, and our lives changed.
At around five pm, I woke up from a nap in our room which opened to our deck. Everything seemed fine at the time.
Somewhere between 5:15 and 5:30, my husband and I drove out to the local amusement park for supper (we have season passes and dining plans, which is quite cost-effective if you go multiple times a week over the summer).
Shortly after we left, a friend who was staying with us used the restroom towards the back and heard crackling sounds, so he went to investigate, thinking it might be a little fire. It wasn’t, it was huge, so he did the sensible thing. He started yelling, and ran towards the front of the house, apparently shutting the French doors between the extension and the main part of the house.
Our son was sleeping in his room and woke up from either our friend yelling or the smoke detector going off, or both. He verified that it was a real threat, looked around his room at all his computer equipment and other valuable items, and decided the thing to grab was his phone.
Someone walking by saw all the flames and called 911.
Our son called my husband just as we were walking into the park (approximately 5:50), and told him that the house was on fire.
He was walking ahead of me, around a bend, and started shouting my name, and saying that our house was on fire. I heard multiple people repeating that “His house is on fire! His house is on fire!” as we rapidly made our way back to the exit and the car.
By the time we got home (6:15), the whole street was filled with firetrucks with their lights blazing. I think the fire was mostly out, though there was still a lot of smoke, and they were knocking holes in the walls and roof to make sure it was all out.
For the most part, the flames stopped at the French doors separating the extension from the main part of the house, which is why we are pretty sure that our friend must have shut the doors as he went through (he doesn’t remember).
The fire spread incredibly fast, and they suspected arson. The bomb and arson squad was there even before we arrived.
From what we understand, the neighbor up the street has video footage of a tallish woman with blond hair stealing a ladder out of his truck, realizing that she forgot a part, and going back to get it.
The next-door neighbor has footage showing the same woman leaving the back end of the house quite rapidly minutes before the fire broke out.
We have not seen either set of footage.
The current theory is that the woman is a girlfriend to the man who we let keep his dogs, and some stuff, under the deck. He also slept there from time to time, far more than he had our permission to. We think that she was thinking that she’d get back at him by killing his dogs (we know that one dog was with the man, but we have no idea where the other one was).
We have a couple of other theories as well.
I do not know what the police report will finally say.
Thank you for going along with us on our rebuilding journey.
Should you wish to contribute to helping us rebuild, please visit our site here:
For more general help, or to leave a tip:
Thank you for reading!
We have finally seen some footage of the woman maybe starting the fire. She is in the back of our house by the deck, then there is some white smoke, and the woman *running* up the hill at the same time, with her dog following her. We were watching on a phone, so it was difficult to see her to clearly, but we recognized the dog.
Also got to see how incredibly *fast* the fire spread, and hear the almost deafening crackles as it burned, with black smoke. I've heard quieter fireworks.
Wow! I hope they catch her. And she can pay for it. I'm glad it wasn't worse than it was.