Scary fire in my Dale City Neighborhood
Yesterday night, I was already laying in bed about to fall asleep, I heard some strange noises. At first I thought my pets are running around in the house they pumped into something. When I heard it a third time I got up to check on my pets. When I got up I realized there is a lot of light outside. At fist I figured it must be the police or ambulance, once I put on my glasses I saw the above. A house in my neighborhood was engulfed in flames and was about to collapse. I saw a car from the fire department that blocked the street but I didn't see any actual fire truck, but they might have been hidden behind a house. Until I saw water actually flowing the home was almost burnt to the ground. Scary.
I have to confess things like this easily freak me out. But imagine how scary it is it only took a couple of minutes for the house to burn to the ground. I saw the fire department run to different hydrants to get water. They had a ladder and at one point sprayed water from the top to contain the fire, to avoid having is spread to the neighbors. Both neighbors homes were a little impacted on the side.
This morning this is what I woke up to:
The fire department and the Fire Marshals were on the scene all night long and this morning when I took my dog for a walk they were still there investigating the fire. I asked the Fire Marshal if everyone got out okay and he did say there were no fatalities only property damage. Thanks god.
I truly feel for this family, they went to bed in their own house and this morning there is nothing left of their home. Very scary.
When I saw how fast the fire destroyed this house my first thought of course was for the people that live in the home and my second thought was how can I make sure something like this doesn't happen to my house.
I couldn't sleep most of the night and did some research on fire safety.
The first thing I looked into are smoke detectors. Smoke detectors safe lives. Make sure you have working smoke and carbon monoxide detectors in your house. I contacted my security company last night for a free consultation to see if they can recommend improvements to smoke detectors in my house.
I also read up on sprinkle systems inside my home. Some newer homes are now built with sprinkler systems, which can avoid a disaster like you see in the above pictures. My house was built before builders added sprinkler systems and I am seriously considering adding a sprinkler system. Especially in the utility room as from my research it is not very expensive to adding a sprinkler in the utility room, not yet sure about the rest of the house, but trust me I will investigate. Based on some of my research sprinkler systems can be very effective of saving property and more important saving lives.
