This morning as I was feeding Paisley, I thought I noticed a burning smell. There was nothing on in the house though that it could be, so I assumed it was from outside. About five minutes later, Tucker came running in and happily said, "Mama, look at the fire!" My heart literally exploded in me and I dropped Paisley on the couch and went running after him.
When I reached his room, I found the source -- his space heater. It was literally blazing like a fireplace fire, not just smoking or something. I pulled the plug out, and immediately called Zack. I couldn't even think straight. If I poured water on it, would it explode? Was there still electricity or something that would shock me? I had a flash vision of me pouring a pot of water and the electricity traveling from the heater through the water, to the metal pot and killing me. Zack suggested a towel, so I put all the kids in my room, shut the door, and soaked a bath towel. I tossed it on the fire and fortunately that was it.
The house was so flooded with smoke that we had to get out. Tucker was still in his pajamas, but that just had to do because I wasn't going back in that room! I got the babies in the car and went back in to open the windows in the back half of the house and turn the fans on. As I did, questions ran through my mind. What if that had happened during the night? Why didn't the smoke alarm go off? What if it had caught fire on one of the kids' clothes? But God made it clear to me that He had taken care of us by letting this happen when I was awake and able to act quickly. I'm still not sure why the smoke alarm didn't go off.... We have new batteries.
Anyway, I was eventually able to get it out of Tucker that he had put a crayon in the heater :-/ As for the damage, I can't really tell yet because I wasn't able to stay in the room long because of the smoke. I was able to get pictures (of course) of the heater though! It's quite a mess. And it's actually melted into the carpet...!
I'm very grateful for the way this turned out! It could have been much, much worse.
No comments:
Post a Comment