Smallish Fire

In Angola, we had a scare when one of our black box power transformers spontaneously lit on fire.  Luckily Bri and I were in the kitchen and were able to unplug and extinguish the transformer, but we have been a little spooked by the possibility of fire ever since.  Now we have another experience to compound our concern.  The first Saturday in March, after the Thomas' ISL basketball tournament finished, we grabbed the kids and a few friends and tried to go bowling, only to learn that you have to have a "reservation" in Latvia and there was nothing open until next Saturday (!).  So we pared our losses, picked up sundaes at the McDonalds at Spice Mall, and headed home.  Rhea and Celeste W., from the embassy, headed upstairs to play, Bri and Thomas fired up the Wii for some Mariokart, and Rhea, Celeste, and Savvy came down to be with us in the family room.  We all settled in for a relaxing Saturday afternoon in Pinki. 

While Bri was playing Mariokart, he said, "I smell smoke – is someone cooking?"  I had just been picking up in the kitchen and knew there was no one doing anything in the kitchen, and once he pointed it out, I could smell it instantly and knew that this was not burnt toast smell, but actually something burning.  I quickly started going through the house looking for the source of the smoke but called for Bri to help me because I knew this was serious.  It smelled like it was coming from upstairs, so I ran up and found it in Rhea's room.  Celeste and Rhea had made a "fort" out of some stuffed animals and a blanket, and in so doing had covered up the super-hot halogen light in Rhea's room when the light was off.  Earlier in the day, after taking a picture of them (and lecturing Rhea on climbing that high and putting too much weight on the armoire and curtains), I pulled the heavies stuffed animals down and most of the blankets before they went on playing. 

Not thinking about the light underneath the remaining blankets, the girls turned the light on when we got back from our outing, and left it on when they went downstairs to join the Mariokart fun.  By the time we found it, there was smoke everywhere, a six-inch diameter hole in the blanket that was smoldering, several stuffed animals were smoking and reduced to red embers, and it looked like we were about sixty seconds from a catastrophe.  Bri and I quickly pulled the blanket and stuffed animals off, got a window open, and put out the glowing embers. 

 Rhea was very emotional about the fire, the loss of a few old friends (stuffed animals that I grew up with 35 years ago), and the near disaster.  Thomas and Savvy showed off their kid-safety embassy training and had the fire extinguisher up in Rhea's bedroom almost before Bri and I had started to pull down the stuffed animals.   The two visiting friends were helpful too, as Casey ran and got a few wet washcloths to put over our faces because of the smoke. ;) We were worried about lasting smoke damage in the bedroom and with Rhea's stuff (it was very smoky and smelled enough that we didn't want Rhea sleeping in there for a while!).  But we left the porch door open for a few days and, remarkably, the smell aired out and everything returned to normal.  

Our family said multiple prayers of thanks that this learning lesson didn't come with a higher cost.  We also realized how blessed we were that the light hadn't been turned on right before we left the house to go bowling because we would have returned to a house of ashes.  The Lord has been good to our family and shown us tender mercies throughout our lives abroad and before, and we are grateful that He continues to do so and spared us more significant damage with this fire!