Kids and matches

[Todd]

Glad it didn't spread your way Cadd.....lucky it wasn't a windy day and the fire department got there quick enough !!!!!

[pirate]

Happy to hear that you and your wife, and property, are all ok. I bet that was pretty scary for a while.

[csguru]

Originally Posted by glwilson

Could it be "Natural Selection" slowly working?

Natural Selection = Darwinism

Glad all is well with you & yours.

Originally Posted by todd (Nomadis Custodis)

Glad it didn't spread your way Cadd.....lucky it wasn't a windy day and the fire department got there quick enough !!!!!

When I chose this house I was particularly pleased that there's a fire station within 2 blocks of us and another within 1 mile. Yeah, they were here fast, man.

[chainsaw]

Glad you and the wife are alright. Guess you won't have those neighbors any longer. Totaled, they will probably tear it down.

Yeah, it's a rough way to get rid of them, but I guess I'll take it. The house will probably be rebuilt, but I don't think it'll be leased for a group home after this. Particularly in it turns out to be arson, though it may not be the case at all. One of the kids there evidently told the firemen that the air conditioner had been "acting up". When I took this photo I did not notice it laying around. I believe it's been hauled off for inspection.

[nightmare]

Glad to hear you and yours were untouched by all that

[cactusjack]

Wow, good thing your place was spared, CQ. Living next door to a group home, huh? Now there's a shot to your property values, but it sounds like the problem is solved now.

We had been living in our new home in Utah for a few months, our oldest son was about 8 and his younger brother was 6. My wife was pregnant with #3. I got a call at work one day from my hysterical wife, telling me I need to get home quick. My boys were screwing around in the big field directly south of our backyard. It was a former sugar beet farm and this was late summer and it was overgrown with dry vegetation. My oldest boy found a book of matches and lit one and somehow lit the whole book on fire. When it started to get hot, he dropped them and POOF!, the field caught fire. It damn near caught the neighbors house on fire, killed 2 of their trees and melted the vinyl privacy slats in their chain link fencing. Just a few feet more and their wooden deck would have gone up. My homeowners insurance compensated the neighbors, who were really cool about the whole thing. My sons got the living crap scared out of them by a fire captain. We laugh about it today.

Several years ago in Chandler, my oldest son was a senior in high school and I had to go pick him up at school and take him home on my lunch break, for some reason. We got to the entrance to our subdivision and there were TV news trucks all over the place. As we turned in, we could see fire trucks. I started to get nervous. A house, not 100 feet from our place, was pretty much burnt to the ground. The little 5 year old boy who lived there with his mom lit a pillow on fire and stuffed it under a big overstuffed chair to put it out. It didn't go out and the chair caught fire... Nobody was injured, but several pets didn't make it.

[lw]

Glad your place wasnt damaged in the fire Q. Those "self-venting" (wood shake) roofs do make for some impressive fires.

You can't legally put wood shakes on a house here any more, but 25 years ago when these houses were built you could. All new construction or re-roofing here is concrete tile or fiberglass shingles. Some commercial jobs and barns are metal. Wood roofs are not allowed.

People buying wood roofed houses around here in recent years really couldn't get decent insurance companies to insure the houses, and because of that mortgage companies were less willing to fund the loans. Still they managed to get bought & sold without bringing them up to the current code. It's really too bad. That house that burned will cost $500,000 to rebuild and replace the contents. It could have been re-roofed for $10,000. There is only one wood-roofed house remaining in my neighborhood. All the rest of us have tile or fiberglass. Unfortunately that house is on the other side of my house. We're lucky the wind didn't kick up because embers could have blown right over my concrete roof and ignited that house too. They nearly did. I found the remains of big embers on my side driveway, less than 10 feet from that house.

[pirate]

That's good that they don't allow wooden roofs out there anymore. I do some shingling in the summer here, and from the wood shake roofs I have taken off, a person could just as well have their roof coated with gasoline because it's so flammable. When we haul old wood shake shingles to a burn pit, we don't even have to use anything to get them burning. Just light a match on them and POOF, they're up in flames. No accelerant required.

[dakals]

WOW!!!!! I am glad to hear you guys and your home are safe!!!!

[racinchef]

Holy Crap!!! That's too close for comfort. Am very glad it did not cause any damage to your property. We like to see fellow members make the news, but not that way.

I sent my wife out looking for any more cigarette butts in our yard, thinking that this is still a case of possible arson, or at least kids smoking on the roof. I know she's seen kids on that roof, and I know she saw one smoking in a tree in the back yard.

Anyhow, she returned with three cigarette butts and a roach in the remains of an aluminum foil roach pipe, all found on our side of the fence, directly adjacent to their trees; in other words, where someone could smoke, and be concealed from direct view of the rear windows of the group home.

At this point I don't know what I should say or do (if anything) nor if it would matter in the long run. The house will need to be re-built, and eventually it will; but I believe it'll be a cold day in hell before the owner rents it out for a group home or anything like that.

OK, I was wrong. Evidently the owners do intend to continue leasing this property out as a group home. I think there'll be some protest about that.