My sister’s friend Cody Spiker called and said, “You’re having a bonfire and didn’t invite me? ” Little did we know, our shop was on fire. It was Memorial Day 2014, my whole family was home for the first time in a long time. My family and I were all up at our shop welding a plow for my mom’s new lavender field. We had been working hard on it since 11:00 in the morning. Kaden, my older brother, was welding, and my dad was grinding metal. They worked until it was finished that evening.
Later that night, Kaden went into the living room to ask my dad a question, he looked out out the window and screamed at the top of his lungs, “THE SHOP IS ON FIRE, CALL 911!!! ” Before I could get my boots on, my dad was already outside spraying the fire with our garden hose, and moving his truck and four wheelers. The building was almost fully engulfed by the time the fire department had arrived. My brother rushed up to the Redlands Mesa Fire department and he waited about 20 minutes waiting for the head chief to get there to take a fire truck.
At that moment, I am sure that his heart was beating extremely fast, because he could see the flames from the fire house and couldn’t do anything about it until his chief showed up. The fire department didn’t really try to put the fire out because it was to far gone, and there was no stopping it from burning it to the ground. It was a coincidence that my brother had joined the Hotchkiss Fire Department about a month before this happened. My brother sprayed our farm tractor and propane tank. By the time my brother got over to the tractor, it would not start, because it was too hot.
However, after it was all said and done, the tires were the only thing that had to be replaced. With fires, you never really know what is going to catch on fire next with all of the sparks flying everywhere. My family was so lucky that our house, barns, tack shed, and other little buildings didn’t catch on fire as well. There is no real explanation of why the fire started. The only conclusion that we can come to as a reason to how the fire started was either the welder or grinder sparked into a cardboard box. Because of that, all we can think of is that a spark smoldered in a box.
It had to of been smoldering for about 12 hours, do to the fact that we were welding since 11 in the morning. This building was more than just a farm shop. It included my dad’s commercial leather business(multiple sewing machines, leather working equipment, leather, etc. ), stored personal belongings, antiques, personal paperwork, multiple shop tools. My sister, Jess, just graduated from college and had stored all of her belongings while she was getting ready to move to her new job. Everything that was up there was a total loss. The next morning, we could see the horrible devastation.
It took me forever to fall asleep that night after the fire trucks and police left at about 1:00AM. The smoke surrounded our house for the next week. When I woke up the next morning, I was hoping that it was all just a dream. Having a structure fire may not seem like it was a big deal, however, the part of this event that is still a huge struggle for me to move past is how hurt my dad was and still is from it. My dad is a pretty strong man, however, when he looks up at the burnt ashes, I just know that he hurts deep down inside.
That shop probably had more valuable things in it than my house does. It was kind of like a second home for him. That shop held memories from bringing a sick foal in and doctoring it, to sewing our own customized bag from scratch. Things such as his great great grandparents pocket watches had burnt and are almost impossible to replace. The worst downside of it was that my dad had taken our insurance off of the shop for a short period of time, and it just happened to be memorial day weekend when our fire happened. In order to move past this tragic event, we had to look at the better side of it.
After the fire, my mom and dad had to start making money again so they came up with this great idea to make things out of all the metal(roofing, hardware, kitchen supplies, etc). My mom made a killing from painting on the burned metal and selling it on ebay. As you can see, looking back on this experience, it was a huge eye opener for me. It made me realize that the important things in life are not things; people and animals are much more valuable than any item. If I had to choose between having a structure fire, or losing a loved one or animal, I would definitely choose a fire.
