At 3am I awoke to hear my daughter Adrienne yelling "Wake up, Dad - Fire!". I grabbed my slippers, hearing aids and glasses and followed her downstairs, down the hall and out the front door. Just as I got there, I thought "Phone!". I turned around to go back into the house and was met with a huge blast of smoke behind which I could see flames. Well, maybe I'll get my phone later.
Within minutes there were seven fire trucks, lights flashing, and several police and other cars, people uniformed and otherwise milling around. I joined Lorna, Adrienne, Demetri and Luca on the front lawn, and wondered where Nicholas was. Demetri was holding his hand in an odd way. It turns out he carried Luca out of the house through the back door, and the flames burned his hand on the way. Fortunately, the burn was not serious, although it could easily have been. Adrienne had climbed out the small basement window of her bedroom, come around to knock on the front door so Lorna, already awake, could unlock it, and then upstairs to wake me.
Nicholas was the first out. He ran over to the home of his friend FFFF, who actually called 911. He turned out to be a great blessing as he brought over some jackets and gloves which we needed.
It was a pleasant night, warm for late fall, but I soon noticed my pajamas were not really warm enough. Fortunately, our neighbour Jim from 26 Lauralynn across the street, invited us all into his home, where we stayed from about 4am to about 9 or so.
There were firemen from several different organizations, and I noticed they did not necessarily know each other. One of the more senior firemen told me "You're lucky - for a fire like this, we would have expected six deaths". That comment has stayed with me since then, and I have frequently reflected on how easily things could have been much more tragic, and despite the delays, how fortunate we have been to be able to rebuild our home.
The damage to the house was amazingly extensive. The flames were mostly confined to the basement, where a large supporting beam in the ceiling and several of the studs were burned severely through, and the flames did destroy the stairway leading to the bedrooms above the garage. But most of the damage throughout the house was from the smoke. All the walls were blackened by the smoke and almost every window was broken. Apparently it's standard for firemen to break many of the windows in order to allow the heat and smoke to escape. We were still picking up broken glass outside the house in April and May 2023 a year and a half after the fire.
Later, we were able to go back into the house and grab some clothes to wear, despite that they smelled of smoke. Little did we realize that that smell would stay with us, on our clothes, in the car, and in the hotels where stayed.
We met Bruce Johnston, a consultant hired by Gore Mutual, the insurance company to be our liaison as we grappled with the consequences. Bruce was very helpful, among other things arranging for a substantial advance for our expenses. Lorna and I stayed at our daughter Rebecca's place that evening.
We moved to the Days Inn, a hotel on Kingston Road.
Received $10,000 advance on expenses from Gore Mutual!
Received $157,000 first instalment on reconstruction costs from Gore Mutual!
Received larger than expected cheque from Gore Mutual for "contents" at replacement value 😊 !
Lorna feeling very unwell and stayed in bed much of the day. I showed the film "Eating Our Way to Extinction" at Don Heights after the excellent service with Deb Stratas who spoke on the heroics of British women during the war. I hadn't realized that a million children were evacuated from London at the time of the Blitz in 1940.
Lorna, Adrienne and I spent the day travelling to AA Flooring in Etobicoke where we finally decided on the flooring. We purchased a 4 1/4" hickory natural coloured hardwood - NOT engineered. We've become very particular about that, a major reason that what we've read says the engineered stuff will last for 20 to 40 years, but the regular hardwood will last for 30 to 100 years. We don't want to be forced to replace it in 30 or 40 years 😉 🙄.
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