House Fire

My wife and I had a house fire, which could have been devastating. Instead, our damage was minimal, our family and animals are alright, and my CERT training was directly responsible for that.

• The fire safety portion of the training taught me how to use the fire extinguisher, which I was able to use to put out the fire before it caused major damage
• I only bought that fire extinguisher because of the CERT course
• CERT taught us how to plan and practice our emergency action plan. Because I came home and told my wife we needed a plan, we sat down and created one, walked through it, and refresh it often. During the emergency, we were able to quickly get the cats and get ourselves out the door. We would not have been prepared otherwise. My wife, who has not taken the course but learned from me passing along what I learned, was ready and knew exactly what to do to take action immediately.
• In the aftermath of the fire, I had the skills and equipment necessary to safely navigate the house – PPE, hard hat, headlamp, etc. I used the CERT supplies that were provided with the program, and the ones I had bought since, to make sure we could safely enter the house, turn the electricity back on, and start cleanup.

Since then, we have informed many neighbors and friends about the fire, but also why we survived and why our house was relatively unscathed. It’s prompted many other friends directly to check their fire alarms, and buy extinguishers.