Uhh, The House in on Fire

I'll explain: We went to see my dad for a few days and as we headed out of town we stopped to see him one last time. As I arrived I found the volunteer fire crew at my Dad's girlfriend's house as the roof was on fire. Apparently a spark from the chimmney caught some pine needles on fire on the shake roof. It was contained between the shakes and the ceiling, and it didn't spread to the rest of the house. Thankfully! But I have to saw that I when I saw the smoke and the fireman (he was by himself mind you) I was a bit pannicky about getting my Dad and Melissa out of the house. Thankfully they were already out of the house and on a ladder fighting the flames with a garden hose when I found them at the back of the house. We were flummoxed at the lone firefighter who had a hose out but did not turn it on. I was about to offer to hold it so he could turn it on. I figure I could just sit on it to hold the pressure as he went from the truck to the end of the hose but apparently the hose had frozen water in it and was kinked. No water could come out. So they had to wait for the rest of the fire crew to arrive to start the water. It was almost like the keystone cops for a while. The first fireman had a clipboard with him the whole time and I kept thinking, "Who needs a clipboard to put a fire out? GET THE HOSE ON AND PUT OUT THE ROOF FIRE DING-DONG!" Well, the fire chief told us that just shooting the fire with a hose like that can push the fire other places and make it much worse. So the fire crews climbed up the roof and pulled off the shake shingles to put out the fire. The inside of the house got a little wet, but nothing too bad. Melissa and my dad stayed very calm the whole time seeing as how the house was on fire.

So the moral of the story is to drain your hoses and clean the pine needles off your roof every month before the snow hits. Oh, and get a metal roof. Thankfully I think all three things will happen from now on. Maybe we will get my Dad a leaf blower to get the needles off the roof from now on. Or maybe their new metal roof won't have rain gutters. It was pretty exciting all in all, and their insurance is doing right by them at last I heard.