Had a fire in my neighborhood last night. A friends house burned so badly the FD decided to let it go. It was built on a very steep hillside, on stilts. It had a double garage with two small apartments under it. I will walk up and take a look later. Went there last night and the firemen told us to get back because they still had not been able to turn off the gas.

We threw computers and papers and clothes in our motorhome in preparation to evacuate. Fortunately there was no wind, so they were able to contain it. Good thing, the area has masses of pine trees.

 

Sorry for your neighbor but very happy for you.

 

Stay safe, Bruce. Fires are a natural disaster I don't have to worry about too much down here...compared to you Western folks.

You got all the hash, guns, cash, gold, and passports safely stashed in the RV, right?

 

Its a gut wrenching feeling watching someone's house burn down, a few weeks ago my wife and I saw one going in our neighborhood, it was caused by a gas leak.

Hopefully your neighbor has someone he can stay with.

 

Hope no one was injured.

House fires scare the craaaap out of me, being that houses here are roughly
half an inch apart, and made of wood, and some, like ours, are over one hundred
years old. Very dry timber.

Bruce, if you need a place to store hash, guns, cash, gold, and passports, I may
know......................

 

All those hot items, plus tax info, pics and jewelry all went into the motorhome in five minutes!

 

Sorry to hear about your friends house, house fires hit home with me. almost 2 years ago, the day after my daughters first birthday, our house burnt down. It was devastating. To literally watch everything you own go up in flames, and a few hours later be left with the shirt, pants, and shoes you are wearing is a tough spot to be in.

The Red Cross was great to us, they came right out, gave us a very generous gift-card to get us by till the insurance company sent a check. They even put us up in a nice hotel for a few nights; we only stayed one night, not wanting to take more then we needed. They even got us medication we needed right away. Just a great organization in my opinion.

One thing that I stress to anybody I can, especially my clients; is the need not only for data backup for your information systems, but on-line data backup!. I had all my computers backed up onto a hard drive, onto dvd's, but if somebody breaks into your house and steals them, or your house burns down, they are of no use. If you use an on-line backup service everything is protected. Get a new computer and just download it all. I lost so much, and the photos of my daughters birth are what hurt the most.
A service like carbonite.com or mozy.com are great options to look into.

 

There's a syndicated talk show host that I listen to on the radio, Leo Laporte, who touts the use of Carbonite.
Also a bank safe deposit box is another option.

 

Save the truck and the beer!!!!

 

Yes, Leo Leporte does talk about Carbonite. I personally use Mozy, only because they were Mac compatible long before Carbonite. But my subscription is up, so I may switch, just because.

A safe deposit box is another option, problem with that is so much of our data is electronic and on our computers now, that not may people would make regular backups of their data and place it in the box. Things like jewelry and non digital values would be a good candidate for that though. I have a fire proof safe I keep all the non digital documents in. While they get to hot IMHO for cd's and dvd's, paper documents and other physical items should fair well in them.

Also a good idea to keep a spare set of keys to cars and other locks in a fire proof safe. My wife's key were in the living room where the fire started, and there really isn't any getting them back. It would have been nice to be able to move the cars right away instead of waiting for the locksmith.

 

Another thing.

Don't get too attach to 'stuff'.

What I've been doing is saving pics, documents, etc., and emailing them to me.

Our lawyer once told us, put your original will/living trust, property deed(s) and
insurance, vehicle pink slips, any non-replaceable documents, in a safe deposit box.

The banks are responsible for them.

 

I agree with backing up your data, losing it can be just as devastating to lose data as losing stuff in a house fire and it happens more often than house fires.
A few years ago I took a four week trip to Austria, while I was there I took about 10K pictures and was backing them up on DVDs and my laptops HDD.
After I got back to the states I went to off load the pictures from the laptop to my desktop to do some editing. After they were unloaded I went to look at them and something had corrupted every single file to the point where you couldn't open them. No problem I thought Ill just get the pictures off my DVDs I made. Not quite the DVDs were corrupt too. In the end out of the 30 days I was there I was able to recover about 20 days of pictures it was pretty devastating. But I have learned my lesson now.

I take lots of pictures (about 1Tb as of now) and they never change after they are taken so i burn them all to DVDs and was keeping the binder of DVDs at work until I got laid off. I worked at a chemical plant and my office was in a safe type building so I figured the chances of it ever burning down are remote.

On top of the DVDs the pictures are on a few different HDDs.

I decided long ago that when I build my house it will have a fire suppression system in it, i'm just freaked out by house fires.

 

Wow, lots of good thoughts and ideas!

Ben, you are on an Escher trip aren't you!

 

Tessellation time...c'mon!

Glad you and your neighbors came out unscathed, Bruce.

Jason

 

Right Jason, check this out Ben: Tessellations - Escher and how to make your own