Last night around midnight my mom ripped the sheets off of me, turned on the light and said:
"Wake up! There's been a fire in the kitchen! You need to get outside!"
Of course, this is just a guess as I was still about 78% asleep. Mom pulled me out of bed, still in my pajamas and led me to the top of the stairs. Up until that point I really had no clue what was going on, but when I saw the smoke, thick and yellowish in the light, I realized that something was very wrong.
I didn't really have time to hold my breath so I breathed in some smoke on the way down the stairs. The smoke was everywhere, oppressive. It clouded my vision and my lungs. It burned my throat and eyes.
Mom ushered me out the back door onto the porch. Soon, I realized that my feet were on fire, but with cold. My dad handed me my pair of slippers and an old winter jacket that was too small for me about a year ago. I put it on and watched Dad go into the kitchen, pull the stove away from the wall, and unplug it.
Mom called 911 when everyone was outside: Me, Mom, Dad, The 2 dogs, and my Grandma who is visiting. The fire was out but the smoke remained and we all held our breath as we walked through the house to the front door. We got into on of the cars and Mom turned the heat up to full blast.
Soon a policeman arrived with a firetruck right behind him. My grandmother and I huddled in the car as firemen entered our house and started opening windows and pumping out the smoke. Mom and Dad help by telling the firemen everything and helping to open`windows.
They stopped back at the car to tell us what they think happened. Dad said that the stove was off when he went to bed. The cause of the fire had been a cutting-board. Dad had propped the board up next to the stove. Sometime in the night, it had fallen sideways onto the stove and must have turned the dial for the burner it fell on, which caught it on fire.
They woke up because of the smell of smoke and the sound of the fire crackling. The fire alarms started after they had awakened. Dad put out the fire once with the fire extinguisher we keep in the kitchen and Mom went upstairs to wake people up. While she was upstairs, the fire started again because the burner was still on. Dad put the fire out again and when we got downstairs, I saw him pull the stove out and pull out the plug.
The firemen pumped the smoke out, but not the smell. We slept fitfully and now it is the morning and insurance people are here to look at the damage. They are going to clean the surfaces and fabrics in the house and probably do something about the destroyed cabinets over the stove (we need replacements for both of these). We may be gone from the house for one week (hopefully this is the worst-case scenario). We may stay at a dog-friendly hotel or at a relative's house nearby. I will still be able to go to John Bemis's writing workshop, which is pretty much the only good thing.
Here are 2 words that I can use to sum up the situation:
This Sucks
~B-Man
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