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The Great Fire of 2002

On December 3, 2002, Charlie was using our 3-day old mulching lawn mower to mulch leaves in our yard. The mower caught fire, the fire spread to the leaves in the adjacent flower bed and the flames burned the siding on our house. The flower bed is gone, the bushes in the front of our house are gutted in the center, and the siding on that side of the house will all have to be replaced (it is aluminum, so the entire house my have to be resided). The phone and cable come into the house on that side and were out for a day. The condenser for the central air unit was burned. We don't know if there is damage to the electrical wiring there or not. The firemen ripped the bottom 3 feet of siding off the wall and tore holes in the covering underneath to check for fire spread. In the process they poked some holes in the drywall. They also sprayed the crawl space with water. We are still getting estimates. Thank God no one was hurt and nothing irreplacable was lost.

This is the south-west corner of our house. The second pic shows a closeup of a hole cut by the fire fighters. Note the charred wood.

This shows the center of the south wall. This is also where the fire fighters punched through to the drywall inside. You can see the condenser nearby. The pic on the right shows the Cable TV wire going into the family room.

This is the southeast corner. You can see more of the descimated flower bed, smoke damage, and a lovely scene of the burnt siding.

The photo on the left is a closeup of the piping for our 2 year-old central air conditioning condenser. The initial estimate is ~$600 for repairs. If it needs to be replaced it will be $2000. The hunk of melted plastic on the right is the phone box.

This lovely pile of burnt siding is our newest addition to the side of the house. The second pic shows a corner perspective of the damage.

These bushes are on the front of our house and were lush and full. Note the center of them is gutted. We don't know if the fire will kill this dogwood tree or not, as the fire only burnt it at the base.

The bare stripped stick in the middle of this picture was a lush holly bush, all ready for the Christmas season. The bare ground on the right is where my 8 beautiful rose bushes were.

Smoke damage and warping on the siding.

Two perspectives of the infamous lawn mower. Very little damage to it is apparent.

The only noticable damage to the lawn mower is this melted cable. The rake on the other hand...

This is Charlie's temporary patch job to the two spots where the fire fighters poked through the walls.

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