Where there's Smoke, There's Fire

By Hattie Foote

When I was six years old our house caught on fire, and you would think it would have been a very traumatizing experience for me. Instead, I was thrilled that we got to move into a hotel for a week, truly what dreams are made of for a child. I was like Eloise, except it was the Embassy Suites in Albuquerque instead of the Plaza Hotel in NYC. Adventures ensued, I was a regular at the nightly managers reception, I met the thrash metal band Anthrax, and I learned about the birds and the bees when I witnessed a couple enjoying the hotel pool a little too much. Life was good, and we were extremely lucky as the damage was contained to just our living room. Coincidently my husband Chris’s house also caught on fire when he was a kid and they lost almost everything. He does not have as fond of memories as I do, rightfully so. I have a lot of irrational fears, so its interesting to me that a fire which is an actual legitimate fear wasn’t high on my list after both of our experiences.

A few months ago, a girlfriend of mine experienced a fire at her home and told me to learn from her incident and make a plan for my young family. I agreed and put it on my to do list, which of course never got done. And that was the first thing I thought of when we found ourselves in a scary situation recently. It was starting to warm up outside, so I left my daughters window open as she went to sleep. I climbed into bed to drink my tea and read my book, cozy cozy. As I was falling asleep, I heard my daughter coughing in her room, so I grabbed her a glass of water and tip toed into her room to leave it on her nightstand. I smelled a faint burning smell, so I shut her window and went back bed. That’s when a faint beeping started, a car alarm I thought. I got back up and went into our backyard, the burning smell much more intense now. I climbed up onto a table in the back to peep around, and I saw smoke pouring out of our neighbor’s roof. I started yelling not so eloquently to Chris who was fast asleep to call 911. Meanwhile I went to the front and ran into our other neighbor who was also calling 911. I had thrown a sweatshirt on over my oversize t-shirt I was sleeping in and kept thinking this is why they say don’t sleep naked in case of emergencies! Chris came flying out and the police showed up I swear in under a minute. You know how close homes here are, so they had us and the home on the other side of

our neighbor evacuate immediately. I was shaking as I ran to the kids’ room and woke them up, it was surreal. My poor daughter was terrified, while my son lazily put on his velour robe and asked when he could go back to sleep. I went into my room and shoved jewelry, passports, and my cameras into a bag, like I was packing for luxury tropical vacation. My daughter stuffed her backpack with her Taylor Swift merch, and my husband chose one single phone charger to save. We are clearly not people you would want with you during an emergency. The Coronado Fire Department was already outside getting to work when we came back out, as scary as it was, we were all in awe of the heroics in action. My mom came and grabbed the kids to sleep at her house while we stayed behind to deal with whatever we had to.

The fire was put out quickly, but unfortunately the house had extensive damage. We were so devastated for our neighbors, and once again reminded how precious life is and what truly matters. Anything can be rebuilt and replaced, none of the stuff really matters. This was a wakeup call for me to be more organized and prepared. Our darling neighbors gave the kids gift certificates to their favorite places, Saiko Sushi and MooTime, which is so unnecessary and so sweet, and it is just another reminder of how special our community is. Please take care of each other. And one last huge thank you to CFD and CPD, heroes.