House Fire Miracle!

ABOVE:  My brother, Mr. Techy and my next door neighbor, has camera's all over our property live streaming things everyday as a security factor.  In this case, his camera's turned out to be really cool catching neat outdoor footage of the house fire miracle.

BELOW:  My footage, with my iPad.  You can tell I'm no techy.  :-)!

A few have asked about this, so I found it easiest to just tell the story once for all.  This latest miracle is high on the list with some of the biggest miracles I have ever experienced that happened the first weekend in November of 2018.  Thursday morning of one week, I woke up to a piece of wood on my floor, trash strewn all throughout my house, pictures moved around, a small tree limb on my floor, ETC.  My first thought was fear that someone had broken into my home while I had been sleeping, and could possibly still be in my place.  I took a closer look at the scene of the crime, and noticed that my purse with my wallet which had cash in it, my iPad, and my laptop were all untouched, and that the most damage was to the trash which is what had been completely ransacked through.  I knew it was not a rat or rodent because when they burst into trash, it's in the same spot, but the trash was all over the house and it was as if a human had done it the way it was strewn, and then the piece of wood in which I later found out came from a cabinet far away in my home told me a rodent couldn't have carried it that far and broken it off like that.  So, I cleaned up as best as I could and headed to work at HQ and told people about my possible furry break in, and I had concluded it was a creature since my purse, wallet, iPad, and laptop were untouched.  I was told by Mr. Jason H. who is a great outdoors man and Mrs. Renee G. who is up on those type of things as well that it was a racoon as they have hands and are known to dig through trash, and to tear up furniture, and even move things around such as my pictures in frames, so Mr. H., a great man, came over with his eldest son E., and set up traps inside my house to catch the racoon.  My brother, another great man, also came over and set up camera surveillance inside my house to see where the racoon was coming in, and to try to help catch it.  One of my bosses told me it probably wasn't safe to stay in my home with a wild raccoon in it because they can be viscous little creatures, so I went and stayed with my parents for a few nights.  The raccoon came back one time, but didn't come back after that, but because of food we had put in the traps for the racoon in trying to trap it; led to gophers or field mice coming inside the house to get the food, and of course the racoon trap wouldn't work for them, but BAM, SLAM, ABRA-KA-ZAM!!!!....the video feed showed us where the hole was in my house where the creatures were coming in, and it was right beside my furnace.  I was supposed to have had some great house guests that Sunday night, but with all of the traps and camera surveillance in my home, I had asked my closest neighbors who live right down the same road about 4 minutes down, Jessie and Ariel H. if they could house them instead as I didn't feel like my house would be of royal standard to host; and they graciously agreed and took them as their guests.  That was super kind of the H's. and they are a super kind couple.  I was sad to have to let my house guests go as I was looking forward to spending a little time with them, but God always knows best, and they came and visited with me at the Hall of Administration that next day, so I still got time in with them.  :-)  Anyway, my brother and Conner B., another super appreciated and helpful man, came over that Sunday and plugged the hole with steel wool for a temporary save, so with the hole plugged, I decided to move back into my house that evening as piano practice and other things could only be done from my own home.  I relaxed, turned on the heat, and then went to bed in a peaceful kind of way.  There really is no place like home.  It was sometime in between 11:30PM and midnight that same night when I was deep into sleep when I bolted awake, and I mean bolted wide awake to the sound of every single smoke alarm in my home going off.  It sounded like a bomb warning.  Sometimes, if a battery is low in my smoke alarms, the alarm will make an annoying beeping noise to let you know you need to change the batteries, and when this happens it is only the one smoke alarm going off, but every single smoke alarm in my home was sounding at the same time, so I immediately got out of bed realizing this was no false alarm.  Just waking up was a miracle in itself.  I have been told that I sleep so soundly that I should go get checked to see if I'm okay.  LOL  An example of how soundly I sleep is that a few years ago, an HQ minister was trying to call me at home on my cell one night because they needed to find a Church fleet vehicle key that I had in my desk at the Hall of Administration to head out of town to the airport to catch a flight out. I noticed on the next morning that they had tried and tried to ring me over and over, and my cell phone was on the side table right by my bed on outdoor loud mode, and I had slept through all of their calling attempts.  They told me later on that they called my brother who lives next door to me, and had him to physically come to my house and bang on my bedroom window.....To their dismay, I didn't even wake up to the sound of my brother banging on my bedroom window.  This gives a background to how soundly I can sleep.  My mother said she trained me to sleep through any noise when I was a young child, and I'm a natural at it now.  :-)  Anyway, going back to this miracle, it was a miracle in itself that I woke up, and I found out as this experience went on that God had awakened me just at the right time.  So going back to when I first woke up and heard what sounded like a bomb alert sounding off....AKA my smoke alarms, I immediately shot out of bed realizing something was wrong....I didn't see any smoke or fire at that moment, so I begin to walk to long span of my home.  When I got to the laundry room, I looked to the right, and there were flames coming out of my furnace.  It was like a movie.  You could hear the fire crackling and see the flames flickering since the house was dark.  I flipped on the lights, and ran back to my bedroom and called my brother and told him my house was on fire.  I have to give him HUGE props.....he got out of bed, probably had to get dressed, and was over to my house in record timing.  He then immediately called 911 and told them that my house was on fire and took care of giving them my address and all of the business aspects.  I was super thankful for this, because by this time I was kind of in a daze.  You know house fires happen to other people, not your own self.  :-)!  When I came out of my short term daze I decided to try to get as many non-replaceable valuables out of the house as I could, so I grabbed bags and started loading them up with things.  I knew God was aware of the situation and would take care of things, but I wasn't sure what His will was going to be at the time to save the house or not, so I took action with what I could to save as much as I could.  Within 5 minutes, I had to grab what I had bagged and leave the rest of my things in the house because the house, within 5 minutes, had filled up with smoke so much that I could barely see, and my eyes were burning.  That is no exaggeration.  I was running into walls trying to get out, and it wasn't because I was carrying so many things, it was because I couldn't see the smoke had gotten so thick.  I realized if I didn't get out of the house, I would probably succumb to smoke inhalation.  This was when I realized that God had caused me to wake up just when the fire must have started because for the house to have filled up with smoke to the point where you couldn't see in 5 short minutes was evidence of that.  I also realized that the smoke was on the end of the house where the guest rooms are, and if I had, had my house guests, it could have affected them more.  I was thankful they were elsewhere to avoid all of the drama and possible danger even with smoke inhalation.  My brother and I waited outside until the fire department arrived.  We saw the first big truck coming down the road, but OH NO....it passed our driveway and went to our neighbors place a little further up the road.  My brother called them back and told the dispatcher that they had passed us, then my brother decided to drive down to the end of the driveway and usher the next truck that we heard coming in.....and this worked, and then another truck came, and then another, and another.  There were 5 fire trucks in all that came to the scene.  Some of the firemen went inside the house to try to extinguish the furnace fire, and then they all of a sudden came outside and tore skirting around the outside of the house and put on oxygen tanks and crawled under the belly of the house with their water hoses.  They stayed under the house for a while and then the captain came to talk to me and told me that the main fire was under the belly of the house and that they had to pressure spray the entire bottom of my house to put the fire completely out and to make sure that no sparks were left to ignite.  I was told that there was damage under the house because of the fire and pressure spray underneath, and that the paper attached to the insulation is what kept the fire going since insulation isn't supposed to burn itself.  I then realized this was another miracle because the bottom of my house is all wood, so for the fire to have been under my house with wood, it is a miracle that that whole thing didn't collapse or ignite all at once.  The fire captain came and spoke with me, and had me to sign some paperwork once the fire was out and the house was secured.  I was told that for the next 30 minutes to one hour that firemen would be inside my house with some kind of blower trying to blow out all of the smoke; I mean you couldn't go inside without an oxygen mask it was so smoky, so that was nice of them to do this.  I was surprised there was even such a thing, but it exists.  She also told me that way out in the country where we live you are charged $300.00 per fire truck when you call the fire department since we don't have to pay taxes on this as city folk do, so it is fair.  However, they had sent out FIVE fire trucks to my house, so that would have been $1500.00 dollars literally up in smoke, pun intended for me to pay out of pocket, BUT the fire captain was gracious and told me that if I sent a check or money order in by the weeks end for $75.00 which is the cost of an annual membership with the local fire department, that the $1500.00 fee would be waived, so of course I took the $75.00 option, and I was informed that with the annual membership, if I ever need to call them again, they will come for free every year that I pay for the membership, so I learned something, and was saved from a big bill.  What a relief and a huge blessing because the fire department didn't have to waive the fee since I was not a member, but they just did it to be nice.  That was a blessing.  Anyway, they blew a lot of the smoke out of the house in about 45 minutes or so, and then they left.  The house still smelt like smoke, and still does as I type this miracle up, but considering the fact that I still had a house to smell like smoke was a HUGE miracle and blessing.  This was either one of those things that was bad situation that God saw and He stepped in and worked it out in my favor, or maybe God just worked in a mysterious way because I needed to have all of this work done anyway, so there I was worried about getting a raccoon out and trying to figure out where and how to plug the hole of how it got in, when now I have no worries in that area.  This was a traumatic experience that I would never wish on anyone, but I am thankful that God allowed me to go through it because it really put into perspective how all of my things, including my house, are so temporary, and how they can be taken away in a flash or puff of smoke.  Pun intended.  It reminded me of what is really important in life, and what is just temporary.  What an awesome experience!  It was a traumatic experience to have to go through, but once it was over, blessings came from it. 

Below are pictures from the actual scene when the fireman had first arrived.