Feb 7, The Story of Our Fire-

 Warning- this is really sad- and as true as I can remember it from that night.

Crews respond to house fire in Minneapolis

The cause of the fire is under investigation, according to a release.

Credit: KARE

Author: Naasir Akailvi

Published: 8:25 PM CST January 8, 2023

Updated: 8:25 PM CST January 8, 2023

MINNEAPOLIS — A home was deemed uninhabitable after the Minneapolis Fire Department extinguished a flame that had laid waste to the residence. 

According to MFD, crews responded to a report of a house fire in the 3800 block of 26th Avenue South around 4:37 p.m. 

None of the home's residents were inside the building when the MFD arrived, but three of their dogs were found dead. The MFD is still searching for the residents’ cat and tortoise. 

“Fire crews laid lines and conducted searches of the building. Fire crews were able to extinguish fire found on first floor but had to evacuate the building to locate basement stairs due to heavy fire in the basement that was burned through to the first floor,” according to a release from the MFD. 

The crews eventually reentered and finished extinguishing the remaining fire. 

The cause of the fire is under investigation, according to the release.

I needed to write this out so I don't forget it. That's Max and me in front of our house, with our kind and comforting tall neighbor Sean standing next to us. Max is wearing a bright orange coat given to him by another kind neighbor, Janessa, and I'm wearing a coat lent to me by our friend and neighbor and now landlord, Andrew.

On Sunday Jan 8th we had been at my brother Tom's house in Highland in St Paul, just across the river, for a Second Family Christmas because all my siblings were in town. It had been a great time, and we headed home after 4. When we parked in the back and got out of my car, we could smell an awful plastic fire smell and wondered who was burning something terrible, but when we got up to the house we realized we couldn't see in any of the windows- they were all black. We suddenly realized the horrible smell was in our house because there was a fire inside, so Max called 911 while I fumbled my keys and got the back door open. Smoke came pouring out and Duane went around to the front to open the front, thinking we'd get more air in so we could get the dogs out. I called 911 too, and Max and I told the firepeople where to come, and then we got on our stomachs in front of the door, not daring to go in the smell of the smoke was so toxic, and called and called and called to our dogs, calling what we always called when we came home or before we were gonna leave: "OUTSIDE!  COME ON, EVERYONE OUTSIDE!"

The smoke was horrible, we couldn't see far inside the house at all, and Max and I went to the front to try calling from there- we still believed that somehow they were alive in there and would come out to us... we could hear things moving and popping in there and thought maybe it was the dogs trying to come to us, and that if we called louder and more, they could come to our voices...

I didn't realize til later that Duane actually went inside with a fire extinguisher to try to put the flames out.

Our neighbors starting coming out, and soon after the first fire trucks arrived- I think we ended up with 5 at some point.

It all becomes a bit of a blur at this point. Max and I were in the front, trying to stay out of the way of the fire people who were working desperately and knew about all of our pets in there- We were given coats and blankets from neighbors, and Max and I went into Donna and Regan's next door to warm up, and Max comforted me and made me breathe some circular breaths to calm down. He's so amazing. I called my insurance company to tell them what was happening and to get some help.

Our friends Elizabeth and Lily and Lucas and Mike and Tony (who was a fireman and knew the people working on the fire!) were there helping us through it all- 

At one point, the fire people brought out Sally, our smallest terrier and tried to resuscitate her. She'd been hiding under the bathtub on the first floor, her usual hideout. The smoke detectors were all going off and must've driven the poor critters crazy. Max tried to keep me from looking, but I told him I needed to see her. They couldn't save her and laid her in the snow, and someone came with a towel and we wrapped her in that, stroking her fur and telling her how much we loved her and what a great dog she was and how glad we were that we got to have her as part of our pack.

I think at this point we were told that they had found Bunny and Teddy, dead, upstairs. 

The smoke was so thick and the power was turned off and the gas I think, and the firemen were needing Duane to tell them how to get to the basement because the fire had burned through the dining room floor and was raging in the basement and they needed to be able to get down there. 

In the photo at the top of this page, you can see the smoke on the side of the house- that was our dining room, where Plato the tortoise was temporarily staying til I brought him back to school. We think Plato had knocked his heat lamp out of the tank and onto the rug, where it started a fire. I had just bought that rug, darn it.

So it was incredibly dark and hard to see in the house, full of smoke and no light but what the firepeople carried with them. We watched them pulling the great heavy firehoses around the yard and across the street, and so many neighbors and newspeople showing up to see what they could do. Andrew said at one point, you know I have a house across the street you can stay in. 

The firepeople had such heavy gear on and one was working to get the hose around to the dining room side of the house, and there were Christmas lights wrapped around the gate and they were having a hard time getting the gate open and finally just wrenched it off its hinged and threw it in frustration. I could imagine how hard it can be, and how scary, to be figuring out where to go to get to the fire and to have obstacles in the way. Because the fire was in the dining room floor, at one point the Fire Chief called everyone out because that's how you lose people- the floor breaks through and they drop below into the fire.

I think around now they had the fire out, and Max and I were able to go around into the backyard where they had laid Bunny and Teddy in the snow.

Oh, to see those familiar furry bodies, smoke smudged and still in the snow, just broke my heart. Bunny was found on Max's bed, and Teddy on the floor near her. The fire person who brought them out said they wouldn't have suffered a lot, it would have just been like going to sleep. But that's not a lot of comfort. We held them and stroked them and told them how great they were. Max held Bunny in his arms, cradled to his chest like he did when she was alive. I just can't believe she's gone. Bunny was a central figure in all of our lives, with her clownish behavior and her solid little frame pushing her way in wherever she wanted to be.  She saved us all during COVID, binding us tighter with her goofy little snores and snorts. We will always be grateful to that dog, and we will always love her.

Animal control was there that night, I guess when they know there are pets they have to take the bodies. They were very kind though, and helped us carry Sally and Teddy and Bunny reverently to their truck. I'm most sad at the thought of Max's beloved companion and bed mate being gone. We only had Bunny for 4 years. 

Lily and Lucas, Max's best friends, were so helpful and kind, and Zev, Max's other best friend, came with his parents too, to see what they could do to support us. I think the sight of our house in the condition it was in was really overwhelming for all Max's friends too. They've been in that house since they were little, playing hide-and-seek everywhere and Legos and building forts with the couch cushions. Lily and Lucas had taken care of Teddy and Sally and Fatoosh, our cat, for us last summer when we were up at Camp Mishawaka with Bunny, and so I think the loss of all these animals and things hit them hard too.

As for Fatoosh, the firepeople said they thought they saw cat tracks on the roof coming out of the house- we had a door onto the back roof that we'd let Fatoosh out of often, and it's possible he was upstairs hiding when the firepeople came up and opened that door to get fresh air in, and he may have made it out, but in talking about it later, Mike our friend and neighbor thought that perhaps Fatoosh didn't make it far. There was so much toxic smoke in that house, he probably inhaled more than any living thing could handle, and we may find him in the spring under our woodpile, where he went to hide and die. 

Plato the tortoise lived for two weeks after the fire- Duane went into the house with some of the last firepeople after they'd made sure the fire was out, and walking through the living room, ground zero, he saw the tortoise on the floor, legs and head out, and Duane was sure he was dead and bent to pick him up, and Plato pulled his legs and head inside his shell! So Duane brought the tortoise outside to Max and me, and we were crying over him and holding him inside Max's coat, and we took him inside to Mike's house where Mike got a bin for him and we tore up recycling to make a bed for him. The poor guy. We were just so happy to think he'd survived. And it was a bit of a crazy joy too, Duane calling him the Assassin Tortoise and joking that he'd been plotting how to do away with the rest of the mammals so he could have all the human attention to himself. I know. Poor taste, but humor helps in a crisis, and it was all we had.

I had called my brother Tom earlier that sad night to tell him our house was on fire, and to maybe not let everyone else know until they'd gotten home safely, because my youngest sis and her boyfriend and my oldest brother were all staying at my mom's house in Rosemount and my middle sister had headed home to Duluth that afternoon. Kel, my youngest sis and her boyfriend were heading to Connecticut the next morning at 4am and needed to get packing and all that done, and sadly Sally and Fatoosh were both pets we'd been given by her. She'd found Sally in Miami over ten years ago, and Fatoosh maybe that long ago as well on a street in Beirut. I'll have to check with her on dates...  She immediately wanted to come up to our house to help look for Fatoosh that night, but we were exhausted.

Tom, my brother, came to pick us all up, and I thought Duane would want to stay at Mike's house to keep an eye on ours, but the firepeople were awesome and got someone to bring things to board up all our windows and lock up the house so vandals couldn't get in, so Duane and Max and Plato and I got in Tom's van and went to stay for a week at his house in St Paul.

On the way to Tom's Duane said he thought he'd like to go to the ER to get checked for smoke inhalation because he'd been in the house without a mask on and it was seriously toxic. So Tom took him over there once we got to his house, and Mary, my kind and loving sister-in-law, took Max and Plato and I in. We had a giant king-sized bed upstairs to sleep in together, and that was the best thing. There were a lot of tears that week. There are still a lot of tears.

I know we will be all right, and that our house will be rebuilt better than before. There has been so much incredible support for us, we are so grateful. We will be paying this forward for the rest of our lives, I believe. 

We are also still very sad. Losing all our pets, it's hard to mourn them one at a time, but I'm trying. Plato did live on for two weeks. I took him to the vet two days after the fire and they were amazed at my story and couldn't find anything immediately wrong. And my brother Tom took great care of him in his home office for eight days until I brought Plato back to school with me, on Thursday the week after the fire.  When I came in the next day, the 20th, he was dead. That totally threw me off and I had to call the office for a sub and go home, carrying his sad little body in a box with me. He was our sad little funny story of survival, and the fact that he hadn't survived made it even harder.

Thank you for reading. I needed to write this, for me. And I appreciate you.

We do have a new puppy, who is doing her best to help us heal with her love and licks and attention. 

I'm including some photos of the house here, they may be hard to look at.

kitchen counter- coffee pot and toaster

various plastic water bottles melted

medicine cabinet behind basement door

near the stairs- Hemmingway pottery and Australian felted wombat with Alan Christians' Birdie Flowers

My favorite Dave Gilsvik Painting

living room Mini-Split melted all over DVDs and Funko-Pops

Mug and handmade glasses collection

back door smoke damage

basement shelves