We nearly lost our house to fire recently

[dtmdragon]

A few of you here will know but I am a full time career firefighter in New Zealand. My family and I live in a small town half an hour from Tauranga city where I work. I had just got to work for a night shift at 5pm and was about to play pickleball in the engine bay with my crew for physical training when my wife rang in a panic that the neighbors house was on fire and it was getting to ours. The first photo is taken by my wife only 5 or so minutes after the fire was noticed as she is going to the children who are down the drive at another another neighbors. My 15 year old daughter had taken our younger children including our 18 month old past the fire to safety while my wife shut our windows and doors and my son moved the cars.

I had only left 30 minimum before. The volunteers that cover our town arrived pretty quick as the station is only 500 meters down the road. Two career fire engines  including mine from the city attended aswell because we automatically back up the nearby volunteer brigades.

Thankfully there was no damage to our place and my wife shut the house up so we even avoided being smoke loged.

The neighbors were home at the time and got out okay including thier kids but they have lost the entire house and everything in it. It is also the father's second familly after loosing two kids in a house fire in the city a long time ago. A fire that some of my colleagues and the fire investigator also attended.

A big scare for everyone.

Our place is the house highlighted below. The back of our garage and sleepout shares a block wall with the neighbour's house so another 10 minutes in the brigade arriving and this would be a different story...

Edited Monday at 09:07 PM by dtmdragon

[dtmdragon]

The cause was an overload electrical multi-plug box plugged into another overload multi-plug box for the teenage son's gaming setup. An electrician working on a separate issue turning the mains power off and on caused (through no fault of thiers) it to finally blow.

Edited Monday at 09:27 PM by dtmdragon

[Flanker562]

Damn gamers... Seriously good thing that people are safe and so on. Gonna be a rebuild, and need to fix what caused it.

[Wrench]

WOW!!! Got some of the luck there, my friend!! Sorry about the neighbors, though

[GKABS]

That is a close call; I am sorry for your neighbor's home. The important thing is that no one got hurt in the fire.

[Stratos]

Glad to see your house got it unscathed!

[Nyghtfall]

Holy crap, that was close. I'm glad nobody got hurt! I also hope, your neighbor and his family has a place to stay now.

[ValAstur]

Glad to hear that no one got hurt in that fire. Material loss is painful, but more is the personal.

Also glad that your house made it untouched. Sorry, for the neighbors though.

[warthog64]

So good to hear you're all ok.

[Sundowner]

Bloody hell Dan !! That was a close call, glad you're all ok.

I used to deliver massage chairs ( £6000 + each) to customer houses & sometimes we refused to plug them in to where they wanted just because their sockets were so overloaded already.

[dusting1234]

Glad to hear things were better than for worse, hope recovery goes smoothly.

[dtmdragon]

Cheers everyone. After spending the last 18 years helping others with thier fires and emergencies you think that you have learnt and implemented all the lessons, to the point of being over cautious, so it wont ever happen you and then it nearly does!