What Saved My Family from Devastation

What Saved My Family from Devastation

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

filed under: family

Momlogic's Jackie: I was home alone with my three kids when our dryer went up in flames. I learned two very important lessons from my frightening ordeal.

It was after 10 PM and I was still doing laundry -- I must've been on load number five or six. My husband was working late and my kids were sleeping. Soon after starting the dryer full of towels, I smelled something burning. I quickly turned off the dryer and called my husband. I knew I shouldn't start it up again and although nothing seemed to be happening, I was nervous to head upstairs.

Just then, smoke began to waft from the cracks in the dryer. I could see that there were flames inside. My husband said, "Grab the fire extinguisher!" which was right around the corner. I began to panic and my mind started racing -- I kept going back and forth between wanting to handle it and just grabbing my kids and getting out of the house.

I ran out of my garage and frantically rang my neighbors' doorbell yelling, "My dryer's on fire, I need your help!" He came running and grabbed the extinguisher while yelling, "call 9-1-1!" My phone was out of range at this point from running to his house and back. I realized that my front door was locked and the only way to my children was through the laundry room. By this point, you couldn't see anything -- the entire room was filled with smoke. I pulled my shirt over my face and ran through the room to get into the house and near my children. I called the fire department and while giving them information, realized my neighbor had put the fire out with the extinguisher.

The fire department arrived a few minutes later and assessed the situation. In that few minutes of fire, my laundry room was trashed. The dryer needed to be replaced, all of the items needed to be tossed out and the walls scrubbed and painted -- a minor (yet expensive) inconvenience when you think of what could've been.

But I learned two important things that night:

• Fire extinguishers save lives. If you don't have one, get one. They make perfect gifts and could keep a family from losing everything. And if you're one of the millions with a real Christmas tree, you absolutely should have an extinguisher handy.

• Cleaning the lint trap in a dryer is not enough. Each time I pull out the lint trap to clean it, small particles drift inside. Get a lint brush and dig in there to be sure there is nothing that can catch fire. And while you're at it, check the vents behind the dryer to make sure they're not filled with lint -- twice a year to be safe.

Click here for more fire safety tips.

7 comments so far | Post a comment now >>

You are truly blessed to have been spared the tragedy that could have occurred.

- Tammy

Posted 12/10/08 11:18 AM

Oh my goodness! What a story….I am so relieved that you and your children are okay. You must have been scared to death. Thank you for the lint reminder….off to do that now!

- sandra

Posted 12/10/08 11:26 AM

A few years ago I was heating oil on the stove while on the phone with tech support trying to fix my computer. I forgot about the oil and it just a short time it ignited. I was in the next room and with no smoke detector near the kitchen I didn’t know about the fire until the smoke came into the next room. I didn’t have a fire extinguisher either so I called 911 and tried to put a lid on the pan. This lid was too small so the fire shot out of the sides of the lid and spread to the counters…the house was filling with smoke so I had to get outside… only to realize that my neighbors car was in the driveway (we lived in a duplex) I went and pounded on his door… by this time (it seemed like only a few seconds) the only 2 smoke alarms were going-off. my neighbor quickly realized what was happening and ran into my house with his extinguisher and promptly put out the fire. This happened is a few very short minuets. We had to wash and repaint most of the rooms, replace the melted (yes melted) microwave, counters and a few burned beyond repair cabinet doors. I thank God that no one was hurt. This happened within a week of Christmas so that year my neighbor gave me a Fire Extinguisher for Christmas and my husband gave me the nickname Sparky. :O) The nickname only stuck for about a year but I still have the fire extinguisher. Luckily I have never needed it/ :O)

- sparky

Posted 12/10/08 11:53 AM

How scary! Thanks for sharing your story and helping others to avoid a similar situation. I’ve gotten in the habit of turning the dryer off if I’m ever leaving the house; I’ll certainly do this after reading your story.

- Kathy Slattengren

Posted 12/10/08 02:58 PM

The same thing hapend 2 me last month i started 2 smell some rubber burning and i got scared so i called my husband at work and he checked made sure evereything was good. thank got nothing caught on fire

- Anonymous

Posted 12/12/08 03:01 AM

- Anonymous

Posted 12/12/08 03:02 AM

I’m so glad that everything turned out alright for you! Better to lose stuff you can replace from the store than anything happen to your family. When my daughter was a little over a week old, there was an electrical fire while my dryer was running. I was in my daughter’s room (luckily on the far side of the apartment) nursing when my husband suddenly ran in and told me to take her and get out of the apartment. I walked down gravel on bare feet and saw smoke rising from between the apartments. A maintenance guy was coming down from the the upstairs apartment from mine and I told him there was a fire. I went to front office as my husband tried to get some of our important perishables out of the house. The ceiling in the laundry room was trashed and extended over to our bedroom. I was so glad that our daughter’s room hadn’t been in that room and across the apartment. Now, my precious child is 2.5 yrs old, bilingual, smart and as charming as she can be(despite the occasional tantrums).

- Ju

Posted 03/24/09 09:58 PM