Waking up to a living room on fire

One experience that me and my family would have rather been without this Christmas was waking up to find the living room of the cabin on fire. It was 3 AM the day after Christmas, and 3-4 hours after we had all gone to sleep, that I woke up to the sound of my Mother yelling desperately. It was my first instinct that she may have somehow injured herself, so I quickly rushed up to see what was going on and how I could help.

Instead, I quickly felt the harsh smell of something burned, and as I got down the stairs to the cabin's living room entered a field of smog so thick one could hardly see. Coughing, I located my parents, who had already done wonder to put out most of the fire by throwing thick carpets over the burning corner table and sofa. (The fire had started in a table in the corner of the room, and spread to half of the sofa next to it.

Realizing that there was still something burning in the sofa's interiors, we quickly decided that we ought to get everything closeby outside into the snow. So with the cabin having a decent ly sized door in the living room, my dad and I quickly opened it and grabbed onto whatever parts of the sofa looked safe and moved it outside. The table and the items close to it - including a Bose stereo center and base which also seemed totalled - was more challenging to move without getting burned. But we were so determined to get anything that seemed likely to still be a cause for further reignition outside that we got it all out as well without catching too many burns.

Only then did everything seem and feel safe. I still spent the next hour or so coughing up and sneezing out ashes and smog. It was quite scary and uncomfortable to see just how much crap I had inhaled, and how visible it was in the form of pitch black spit as if I had been eating nothing but licorice. After all, most people sustain injuries and death from what they inhale, not from getting burned. So I was quite obsessed with getting everything that I could out of the system.

So there we were, at 4 AM with the cabin smelling like a bonfire and ashes in every corner of the living room covering most if not all of the Christmas decoration. Too pumped by the whole event to go to bed, we spent most of the remainder of the night cleaning up and trying to restore a more habitable condition. Amazingly, there were hardly any damages aside from the furnitures that caught fire and the decoration, pillows, speakers etc that had been close by. The cabin itself was in Meat perfect shape with no markings on the wall and only some minor damages to the floor.

But of course most important : all 4 of us + dog were okey. Just shocked.

The most annoying thing perhaps is that we still don't know what caused it all to begin with. We always have a strict routine of checking that all lights and candles are turned off and blown out before going to bed. And we are also cautious about how we place different decorations and candles in order to minimize the risk of fires. Of course, errors can still be made. Perhaps there was a Christmas - themed candle on the table that we overlooked which burned down and into the table while we were asleep? We really don't know. It was also a bit worrisome that the smoke detectors only went on a few minutes after we had already woken up and come to action. It is hard to tell how much worse it would have been had we been 3-5 minutes later.

Anyways as I said, we're now just happy that it all turned out as well as it did. However, it was a powerful remimder of how little it takes to cause significant damage and danger. So I hope you all take good care of yourself,are mindful of what Christmas decoration you use and where you place them, as well as make sure to take a tour around the house before going to bed to see to that every candle is sufficiently blown out. I know I will be even more mindful even though I'm positive that I've been both careful and had good routines already. But seeing how it can still go bad only makes one more humble.