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Austin Babies
Scary Night!
First of all, we are all okay 
Last night about 11pm I was standing at the kitchen sink doing dishes. Suddenly my eyes started burning and I started coughing. I turned around to realize the room was filled with smoke.
-- How often do you worry about the house catching on fire while you're nekkid? Yes, I was wearing a freaking bath towel! --
There was enough smoke that I was scared, so I ran upstairs and got the baby out of her bed and ran outside. DH was around the corner checking the mail. He was close enough I could get his attention, and I told him the house was filled with smoke and he came running back.
The smoke was dissapearing quickly, but a very strong chemically/burnt smell was getting worse and worse. DH ran around the house unplugging things and looking for some source for all of this (and brought me some clothes and the dogs -which I'd forgotten about- in the mean time ). When he turned off the brakers, the smell quit getting worse. However, we never could find the source, so we called the fire department after about 10 minutes. There was no way I could relax not knowing what had happened!
AFD showed up in less than a minute. They turned the brakers back on and the smell came back for a minute, then faded. Once they confirmed that there was no fire, one of their first questions was, "Have you changed the AC filter recently?" Why yes, about 15 minutes before this happened. "Do you have gas heat?" Why yes, we do. What apparently happened was there was dust in the filter we put in, which blew up into the ac unit. It caught on fire from the gas pilot light and blew through the house.
Am I the only one who's never heard of this? It must have happened before since it didn't take them long to guess what was wrong.
And just for fun ... now the AC won't cool the house. The AC won't hardly come on, and when it does no air comes out of the vents and it only stays on for a minute or so.
And now picture me ... standing in the driveway with soaking wet hair, wearing wet clothes (DH grabbed them off the drying rack in our bedroom - they'd just come out of the washer), with no bra on, holding a half asleep baby who decides to puke all over me while talking to this poor very young fireman who clearly was not comfortable with baby puke. I must have looked .... very matronly! LOL
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Re: Scary Night!
Yowza!! That is scary. I'm laughing a little about the in-a-towel thing, though.
I'm so glad y'all are safe and the house is fine.
I hadn't heard about dust potentially catching fire until I met DH. He's super anal about all things like that, but if he hadn't told me that was a possibility I would have not had any idea either.
And double boo about the AC! No bueno.
Oh wow- that is scary. So glad yall are okay. Don't worry- ff's see *much* worse than a half-dressed drippy mom on a night call.
Don't worry about the rookie- I'm sure he's not scarred, either.
And here's the lecture part, sorry... call 911 immediately when you smell smoke. Honey, it's their job and what they're there for. Every second counts with something like that Please.
Again, I'm so glad yall are okay. Fire's a pretty scary thing.
sooo ummm were the firemen hot?
I'm glad everyone is ok. I'm not getting this whole dust catching on fire. I know we have a pilot for our water heater but in don't think we have one in our AC unit. So that probably means we don't have a gas heater right? Now that's it's just me and the kids in the house I want to make sure I don't start a fire when changing the air filter.
Thank you, and next time we will. Looking back I realize that if there actually was a fire (that kept burning, anyways) 10 minutes could have burned our house down. The guys that came out were super nice, and definitely said to call sooner and anytime anything like that happens.
That is so scary! And no, I've never heard of dust catching fire either.
Glad that you're all safe and sound!
Yes, yes they were. Even the older ones had aged very nicely. The younger ones, well ... yes they were
And I dont' get it either. I knew the pilot light was in that same closet, but I think it's weird that air is blowing through there? I dunno, I just took their word for it. It explained pretty much everything, so I believed them. I don't understand it, but I believe it!
(read it. you know you want to.)
anderson . september 2008
vivian . february 2010
mabel . august 2012
FWIW, we usually buy several air filters at once and store them in the closet where the AC unit is located. So that filter had been sitting in there for months collecting dust, and there were several holes in the plastic wrapping, if DH recalls correctly. Both of those factors probably added to the dust factor.
And I wish I looked like Susan in a towel! Thankfully, no hot neighbors came investigating. Come to think of it ... none of my neighbors at any point came to investigate. Sheesh, glad we were okay!
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Yikes, that is scary! I'm so glad everything was ok and that you can laugh about it now -- I had to LOL at the mental image of you dripping wet with wet clothes and a pukey baby!
Also, thanks for sharing the info - I had never heard of anything like this happening so it is good to know!