It was midnight, 8.5 hours ago.  Youngest brother and Mom were sleeping.  19 year old brother was watching a movie, I'm on the shitter (figures).  I hear my brother yell "WTF" and some asshole with shoes running heavy and fast on the hardwood!  I don't see anything because I'm in the bathroom literally wiping my ass.  My instinct told me that some poor soul had the misfortune of breaking in my home.  I'm 6'0" 200lb and my brother is about 6'2" 210lb.  I've never been in a fight alongside my brother, not since we were kids.  I've been in scuffles against him.  He's not much of a fighter, but he's freekishly strong.  He can pick me up and throw me accross a room.  He doesn't even work out, I don't know where he gets it.  I don't have the torque he has but I'm much faster and I believe I can take more punishment.  In any case the prospect of being in a real fight alongside my brother as adults was exciting even if I was stressed (understated) about mom and youngest brother being vulnerable.  All I could think was that as long as we use our bare hands they can't pin this as excessive force.

This excitement was short lived because when i rushed out the bathroom I didn't find any intruder, there was none.  It was my brother running around in his shoes.  He was spooked.  You ever see someone that was spooked?  Spooked is like the climax of panic and shock.  It happens just before you're able to function more normally.  It didn't seem like he knew what to do with himself at that exact moment. 

Just as I ask him "wtf is going on"  he cuts me off and exclaims there's a fire!  Like a twit I look left a right for the fire.  And before I can form a new question, he demanded that I look out mom's bedroom window.  I ran in her room where she was still asleep and sure enough a house accross our modestly sized backyard was engulfed in flames.  It is -25C (-13F) outside  and I could feel the heat of the fire even with the window closed.  The fire was so bright that it light up the room.  The house was maybe ten meters away.  I say a house but it was actually a small apartment complex, divided in four. 

It's amazing how fast fight turned to flight.  The thoughts were whizzing by.  I told my brother to wake up the neighbor (semi detached), shes like 80 and was alone last night.  Meanwhile I woke up the rest of my family.   Looking at the burning mass of hell, I figured a 50/50 chance the fire would spread to our house.  Above both our homes are two very large trees that bridge our homes.  All that had to happen was a change in wind and pfff. 

I ran in my room to get dressed.  And this is where we have a discussion.  I was in a rare position.  My house wasn't on fire yet.  So I had a headstart by at least a few minutes.  It was still required that we leave very soon but I had maybe a minute to grab a few prized possesions.  I know it sounds stupid, who cares about your junk when you're life is in danger.  Well believe me if our house was on fire there are only three things I would try to grab.  Family , clothes (only enough to wear) and wallet.  That's the exact order I chased these things.  Once I woke up mom and my brother I went to get dressed and found my wallet.  I was left with what I figured a minute to grab some shit I value.

You want to know what I grabbed in this time.  I shit you not.  I looked around.  You know what, I don't have many things that aren't replaceable.  It would suck to lose my DVDs and HDD, any kind of data is always a bitch to replace.  The worst thing to lose is all my paper work.  You know those thin sheets of tree that rule our lives.  Receipts, degrees..., birth certificate, death certificates of relatives, tax paperwork, pictures, work... It's a good idea to keep all of that shit in one suitcase.  That way if the shit hits the fan you can just pick it up and go, save yourself a lot of headache if you lose it.  Another smart idea is to back up all your data in an external drive, including movies.  This is a good idea regardless of a fire.  Anyways the only thing I brought besides my clothes and wallet is "The Hitchiker's Guide to The Galaxy"  trilogy in five parts.  A fucking book, that's it.  But in my defense at this point the fire department was here and I had a more optimistic expectation of the fire being tamed before it shits on my home.  I did figure I might have to sleep at Grandma's, so a good book is good.  In the end we were able to go back in after the first hour. 

Fortunately, lady luck was threw us a bone and the wind kept the flames away from our home for the three hours it took to put out the fire.  We don't even have any smoke damage.  The cold and wind saved our asses.  If this was July, I'd be sleeping on Grandma's sofa instead of in my room typing on my sexy G15.

But it goes to show how unprepared I was.  I handled myself fine but if the house burned down I would have lost all my paper work and digital data and I even forgot to grab my weed.  Weed is cheap but if I lost my home I would want to roll up a J as soon as I get my ass out.

Anyways, what would you grab if you had 1 minute to get out?  Assuming you're already dressed.        

I'd grab my Archos portable media player, Netbook, flash drive, and maybe my PSP.

$400 emergency cash I have stowed away.
Wallet with ID
Cell phone and Charger
Large collection of letters written to me by my girlfriend.
iPod Touch
Brother's laptop

in that order.

I'd grab some nachos.

I'd grab my balls.

See if the fire comes to my house, then!

Joe Redifer


I'd grab some nachos.

Sounds bad Agent.  Anyone hurt?

Its impossible to be prepared for stuff like that.  When it happens you've just gotta do what comes naturally.  Which might be to blow furiously!

I dont have much in my flat tbh - my wallet is my trouser pocket.  And I keep all my work stuff in a rucksack which stays in my car.  So I'd have to say mobile phone. 

All my valuable stuff is too big to save, I would just grab my wallet, keys, and cell phone, which are all in the same spot.  I think I'm pretty safe unless I start the fire in my apartment though.  Brick and concrete don't burn too well.

Actually just last week as I was contemplating whether or not to get up or sleep a few more hours the alarms were going off in the hallway.  So I quick put on clothes, grabbed my wallet, keys, phone, and left.  I went to chipotle for lunch and when I came back all was well.  

I'd grab my balls.

See if the fire comes to my house, then!

The cops were kicking us out.  Not only because of the flames but there's flying debris and smoke.  You don't want to fuck with carbon monoxide. 

Sounds bad Agent.  Anyone hurt?

The police said they believe everyone made it out but they could be playing things close to the chest.  I'll only know if everyone for sure if everyoe is ok after reading the news article.  My family's fine, our house is fine.  Maybe I'll take a picture later.

We had front row tickets to watching the firemen put out a fire.  We've all seen fires before but this was the first time where I watched the whole thing.  It's always something to see a professional work.  Seeing the details on how they contained the fire, hearing a propane tank expload.  At one point you see them ram exterior walls of the building.  And if you're wondering how they deal with the freezing temperatures outside, because they have to stand around for hours.  They brought a city bus to keep warm, and it seemed like they were taking shifts.  There was about 20 firemen and maybe eight cops.  The parametics were there briefly but I didn't see if they picked up anyone.  I'm sure with fires they go automatically.    

Since I have a backpack that I use everyday I could throw a lot more stuff in it before taking off. In addition to the stuff I mentioned earlier since they're all in the same area, I'd also grab my redweld folder containing all of my important documents and toss as many of my game music CDs in my bag as possible before my time is up. That's pretty much all I can do in 60 seconds.

Our backyard shed is half burned, too close.

Well I had something very similar happen to me a while back. My father burnt down my sisters kitchen and this was apartment. I grabed my big AZZ Pc tower and headed down the stair case like I was Randy Moss. So I learned my lesson from there. The next time this happens I'm going to toss my pc and my ps3 out the window after I get my family out safely.  I would toss as many things out the window a possible. Oh and I also have a suit case with all the good stuff in it gun and all. 

Glad to here you guys are okay.  Remeber to toss crap out the window that you value or they will slow you down while running out.

mikayd2

 Oh and I also have a suit case with all the good stuff in it gun and all.

Jesus fucking Christ, you are a gold mine for unintentional laughs based on stereotypes and stupidity. I dont know what I would do without you.

You grabbed a PC tower and ran?  LOL

emofag


You grabbed a PC tower and ran?  LOL

Too bad it wasnt the monitor or a TV, then the jokes gotten could have be at least 100 times funnier.

I would grab my external HDD, keys, phone and wallet. They're always lying on my desk, so that wouldn't take long

Anyway, if I were in that situation I wouldn't grab anything besides wallets and keys, all I need is my car and money.  My insurance would pay for anything I lose of value, and while it would suck to lose work in computers it's not like I work for nazis, if you tell your boss or professor or whatever that you lost some work because there was a fucking FIRE at your house and you almost got burned alive he would understand, so just chill.

It really depends on how bad the fire was. Anything non-living that I really give a damn about is conveniently near my front door. So assuming the fire was really bad, I would just grab my autographed Steve Smith jersey and would try to get my HDD(I keep my cell and wallet with me at all times, so I wouldn't worry about that). If the fire was pretty far off I'd start to move things out, such as the TV, 360, PC, games, and PS3, but like Emo said, the insurance would take care of everything, its just a matter of what you don't want to wait for. I have a friend who lost almost everything in his house during a fire, and his insurance company had to give him things of equal quality if they coudln't find a replacement for their things and he got a brand new wii because he had a never opened gamecube in his closet, an LCD that was a little bit bigger than his 42 in. LCD, and another LCD(32 in.) to replace his 31 in. CRT because they coudlnt' find a CRT of that size in good shape.

Well I really don't see this as a joke. I was working out of my home and my pc was lively hood if I lose my pc I would have lost every thing. It was very important to me no pc equals no money at the time.  Of course I had all my wallet and keys on me. 

mikayd2

I was working out of my home

Moar like unemployed amirite?