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This time last year my neighbors four doors down encounter their worst nightmare. A chimney fire that destroyed their entire home. That left an image in my head that said "Wow what if it was me?" I called my alarm guy and begin my journey to get prepared. Ensuring full attic smoke and fire detection, overabundance of extinguishers all throughout the house, escape ladders, and a plan. All the important stuff!
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Today we almost had the holiday disaster that ruined it all. At 11:56 am I was in the kitchen catching up with my brother when the fire alarm went off. Not smelling any smoke, I found it odd and tried to turn the alarm off to continue my conversation. It came up again two minutes later and then I knew something was up. At the time we had five adults, two kids, cats and dogs inside the house. I yelled to the kids, who were in the next room to be on alert. Quickly I went to the second floor and found the master bath full of smoke, but no indication of flames. I thought, "How is this possible to be on fire when no one downstairs could smell anything??"
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At that point I yelled "FIRE!" to warn the family downstairs, and quickly ran to the third-floor where I suspected the fire was. The third-floor was filled with smoke, but still couldn’t see flames. After I opened the attic door I knew it was in the right place. A quick glance around the corner and I discovered a 4ft tall fire coming out of our mechanical equipment. It starting to climb the wall and was inches from the roof 30 feet away. I strategically had placed two large fire extinguishers for such an event. Thirty seconds later the fire was out, our lives were saved. Fire department came 12 minutes later. We do not have city water, so there are no fire hydrants in our part of town. Our first line of defense was our own plans and our own actions. Today that saved our home, and possibly our lives. It wasn’t until our neighbors lost everything last year that I thought, "What is my plan, and am I prepared?"
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Today, we had an electrical fire in our attic with our whole house humidifier. We were prepared. We were home. We were lucky. Accidents happen, but our job as parents is to protect.
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Use this as your wake up call. Is your family safe? Are you prepared for those unforeseen disasters?
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I want to send a huge Thank You for the New Canaan fire department for being so amazing in their response. I’m glad we could share a smile around the whole situation, vs a shoulder to cry on. Also, a big thank you to Dan at Custom Security and Jared at Smart Home and Theater Systems for helping us to ensure we are ready. We will be going over our plan with our kids again tonight just in case we need it again.
Safety planning can never wait. Be safe, and be prepared!
Erwin C.
New Canaan, CT.
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