The Down Range Forum
Member Section => Down Range Cafe => Topic started by: MikeBjerum on July 09, 2009, 07:27:06 PM
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Sometimes crying in your beer isn't enough, so I'm going to cry in yours (it's good to have friends).
This is a copy of a note I sent to a few friends explaining my mood this week. You might have noticed a tone and language in a few of my posts off and on as well. I started feeling it over a week ago, and it really hit Tuesday night when I got a call about another funeral home in one of the towns we are also in http://www.mankatofreepress.com/local/local_story_189232932.html (http://www.mankatofreepress.com/local/local_story_189232932.html)
Twenty years ago, 5:15 PM, Monday, July 10, 1989 my pager went off with several tones (fire, ambulance, police, sheriff and Windom fire), and as I realized it was not time for the 6:00 test I heard the call over the radio to go to the Mike Bjerum farm … Smoke showing!
Audrey had gotten home with the kids, and as they started in the kitchen through the breeze way they were met with a puff of smoke. As she took the kids to the shop to call it in she looked back and saw the smoke puffing around every window and door frame, and out of the eves and vents. She is not sure why she hadn’t seen it when she drove up, but it was there now.
I had been in the house just after noon, and everything seemed fine. When the call came I was only a mile away cultivating and couldn’t see anything through the grove, but by the time I pulled on the yard there was a lot of smoke lingering.
It was a back draft fire – the house was closed up tight with the air running, and when it broke through the interior walls it starved for oxygen. When they ventilated the house all the gases began to burn, and we could watch flashes of flames shoot through the rooms as they tried to get the gases and smoke out and cool everything down. The Fire Marshal estimated it had burned in the wall for a week before it broke out while we were gone … Thank God! He looked at the damage and told us if it had broke through at night Audrey and I would have had a 50/50 chance, but the kids would not have made it (it started and broke through in an intersection of our bedroom wall downstairs, the stairway and the kids rooms upstairs – we could see in to both kids rooms and the foot of John’s bed from our closet).
We had smelled smoke around midnight on Saturday night and had the fire department out. They spent over and hour and didn’t find anything. By the time they left many were saying that we were imagining things, but the Chief, Asst. Chief and two others that had been the first in had smelled it as well and were very frustrated. Forty-one hours later we found out we weren’t imagining, and after another fifteen hours we saw the wire that started it all.
Needless to say that everything going on this week with Nick and Barb has not made sleeping easy. And with Audrey out at camp I didn’t tell her until just a little bit ago when she called to check in … BIG MISTAKE!
Well, that was twenty years ago, we are all ok, we have a new house, and many other changes that have made that look like small potatoes in comparison. I made the mistake of riding past Pease Funeral Home last night, I don’t think that we’ll be having a campfire this weekend to relax when Audrey gets home or taking that route into St. James for a long time (that is the main way we go when we head to St. James or Mankato).
On that happy note, thanks for listening and have a good weekend.
Mike
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South east side of the house - Firefighters will tell you that when the open the roof it is just the first step in tearing it down, and I knew it was gone
(http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e330/m58/HouseS.jpg)
Even with all the widows "opened" (broken out) note the smoke still coming out the bathroom vent on the single story addition
(http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e330/m58/HouseN.jpg)
On the left you are looking through the remains of two three panel doors of our bedroom(one entry and one closet), and to the right used to be the wall between the bedroom closet and dining room where the whole mess started in the wall
(http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e330/m58/Bedroom.jpg)
Our son's bedroom. You can see the hole in the floor at the foot of his bed that is right above the missing wall in the previous photo
(http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e330/m58/JohnBedroom.jpg)
Our daughter's bedroom (her bed is laying in the front yard because it was easier to put the flames out out there) and the upstairs landing between the kids bedrooms along with the stairs is completely burnt out and gone
(http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e330/m58/AnneBedroom.jpg)
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Mike,
Glad it wasn't you, my friend. I lost family in a fire 30 years ago and fire still scares me.
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I feel your pain too. I was about 10 when my family lost our home to fire (I am 33 now).
Still to this day I still get a funny sick feeling when I smell smoke from electrical or home fires.
About 6mths ago I was driving home and smelled an electrical burning smell, I about drove my truck off the road until I realized it was not me.
Fires suck!! Best advise I saw was to hire your own adjuster to help you in that time of need.
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Mike -
Tough week, tough memories. I lost friends in a motel fire (arson) in Nashville (?) a few years back. Don't have a problem with fire so much as the arsonist - also hispanic.
Hang in there Mike, you're among friends, and I'll freshen the beer.
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Mike, M58, tonight and from now on, my families prayers are with you and yours, so close to tragedy, but not, and for that I am glad. I hope you had good insurance, but if not, family is safe as are you. Keep in touch, let us know if you can use anything we can provide. Know what I mean, M58. We don't forget.
Rangers HO!
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Glad to still have you with us. ;)
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Wow... fire is so devastating... Glad you are all safe...
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M58, sorry to hear the news but glad your all right!!
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M58, I live a couple doors down from the FS and I hear them go out at all hours of the day and night and it's not a good feeling (except knowing they are there and ready when needed!). God Bless Them All!
Richard
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M58, I live a couple doors down from the FS and I hear them go out at all hours of the day and night and it's not a good feeling (except knowing they are there and ready when needed!). God Bless Them All!
Richard
I feel like a Hair Club commercial as I think of this, but ...
Not only have we used the fire department on more than one occassion, but I used to train them in several areas as well. Never met a better group ... EVER! Of all the groups I trained, fire departments and sheriffs departments were the best.
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Mike,
We share a similar anniversary. In September of 1989, I was living in St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. Here came a big bad Cat. 5 hurricane by the name of Hugo.
Long story short I lost everything that I owned, and like many folks on the island, my job too. I really just miss the sentimental stuff (I have no high school or college year books, I lost my Dad's WWII dogtags, that sort of stuff).
All said and done it was just stuff and it didn't take long to get stuff again.
I survived and so did all of you. We are blessed my friend.
Stuff is stuff and can be replaced. You can't replace people. Hold on to that and smile next year when that day rolls around.
Keeping you and yours in my thoughts and prayers.
Kid
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Mike, thanks for sharing the experience with us and showing everyone that we can rise above our misfortunes.
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I'm glad you have all recovered from those kinds of losses.
I was in VFD for 13 years, 6 as a chief officer and 3 as Chief. I had a few rip roarin' jobs in my stint at the top, but thankfully never a fatality. I had a passion for it like I do for shooting...just can't get enough of it or training either.
After a messy political ordeal I was ousted and out-cast, the department eventually went to virtually fully paid. The last fire I responded to was (now again as a peon) a good friend's house. Fire started in the second floor and into the attic. I was as far as you could get from being in charge and so I busied myself doing salvage- covering first floor belongings, etc. Spent some time hugging his wife out in the street, who had been called and came home from work to watch. At the end they had most of those things I had covered, but not much else.
They had good insurance and I actually rebuilt their house. It all turned out great, but it was my last fire. I resigned shortly after that fire and never went back to another function...just didn't have anything left for it.
You never know how or how much an incident will affect you. Anyone who has that kind of traumatic incident and comes out of it with everyone healthy and feeling good is really blessed.
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Mike,
We share a similar anniversary. In September of 1989, I was living in St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. Here came a big bad Cat. 5 hurricane by the name of Hugo.
Long story short I lost everything that I owned, and like many folks on the island, my job too. I really just miss the sentimental stuff (I have no high school or college year books, I lost my Dad's WWII dogtags, that sort of stuff).
All said and done it was just stuff and it didn't take long to get stuff again.
I survived and so did all of you. We are blessed my friend.
Stuff is stuff and can be replaced. You can't replace people. Hold on to that and smile next year when that day rolls around.
Keeping you and yours in my thoughts and prayers.
Kid
Our kids were six and three at the time, and to this day I beleive it was the best thing that could have happened to them, and us. As much as we all enjoy our stuff we are well aware that it is just stuff that can be here today and gone tomorrow, and life will go on.
We're all scarred by something in our lives. This is just one of mine, and the nice thing about sharing is that we all realize everyone here is healing from something as well.
Thanks everyone!