My Parent's Condo Fire

When I go to sleep at night, I no longer put my phone on vibrate. Because I almost completely slept through my parent's nightmare. A time when my family was in desperate need of help and I ALMOST SLEPT THROUGH IT. It was October 28th, 2:45 AM when my phone first vibrated and didn't wake me. Then Tyler's phone vibrated and brought me out of sleep enough to realize someone was calling and that it should worry me. I crawled over Tyler's sleeping body to see my Dad's name. I missed that call but immediately called him back on my phone and my sister answered. She was hysterical. And who could blame her? The first thing I heard when I answered was: "IT'S ON FIRE! IT'S ALL GONE! THE HOUSE IS GONE! IT'S BURNING!!" I was so confused but her tone still gives me nightmares. Being woken in the middle of the night to news that your parents house is on fire is literally the last thing I ever expected to happen to me. I was in a panic but stayed calm for her sake. Tyler was also instantly awake because he could hear my panic and also her crying. He was out of bed and getting dressed immediately to go over and help them. We weren't sure who's house they would come to and thought it could be ours. My Dad was missing shoes and it was October so it was cold so Tyler brought blankets, shoes and jackets. I didn't sleep the rest of that night. Tyler didn't even come home until after 5 am. I bawled the next day when I saw my mom. It just hit me how close I had come to losing them and was also sad for them to lose their home and all that was in it. I know it is not technically lost but I will never see it how it once looked again.
The crazy part was that just weeks before this fire I had taken all of my childhood belongings out of their house. It was a serious blessing.
This is a video my Dad's security camera captured. My sister had been up pumping(she had a newborn baby in the NICU) and heard loud popping sounds. There was an orange glow coming from outside so she decided to investigate. What she saw was the last thing she expected.

My sister ran back inside and screamed to my parent's about the fire. But they were already up. My mom had woken up to the noise(the fire was blazing right on the other side of their wall). My mom mourns the loss of all of the photos that were in her bedroom she had collected through the decades. They had lived in that condo for almost 40 years. They were out of there in minutes and my Dad ran down to the neighbors to alert them. He even had to break the window of one of them because they had not yet woken up and he had no way of alerting them otherwise. It's truly a miracle no one was hurt or even hospitalized for smoke inhalation.
Amazingly my sister had enough sense during the panic to tell my parents to move their cars because it hadn't of even crossed my parent's minds. My parent's thank her all the time for saving their vehicles.
One interesting thing that we were told was Murray City turns their water pressure down at night so the firemen couldn't even put the water out when they first got there. They had to wait for what seemed like decades until they were able to contact someone to turn the pressure up. Ridiculous. Every second is precious during a house fire and who knows how much was lost because of that little detail.
We found out what the cause was months later: spontaneous combustion. Two units over was completely empty and being remodeled. They had left rags and left over old carpet out on the patio in a pile with varnish and they lit up! The flames blew out the sliding glass door and the fumes from the newly refinished floor caught fire. The unit next to it(the one right next to my parents) was also empty because the couple was on vacation. Can you imagine going on vacation and coming home to this? Both their cars were lost because no one could move them.
My parent's ended up staying with my brother for a couple weeks because they had extra rooms and we didn't. They then went up to my grandparent's home until my sister was able to fly back home to be with the rest of her family. My parent's are now back with my brother and will be there until the condo is completed. Hopefully by Christmas! They get to customize it to their liking and it's definitely the silver lining in all of this! Getting a brand new home after 40 years.
My Dad had the best attitude about this all and the first thing he said to my brother who also went to help at 3 am was "Hey! I don't have to re-do the bathroom anymore!" My parent's master bathroom had been under renovations. Seriously their positivity through it all was such an example to so many!

Thank you so so much to all of you who helped us get through this time!(technically we are still getting through it but the worst is over) And a HUGE thank you(I've thanked her a million times over) to my high school girlfriend Morgan who set up a Go Fund Me.
My mom and Dad(and sister who had been temporarily living with them while her baby was in the NICU) literally had no material possessions and were overwhelmed with the outpouring of love and donations they received. Things truly aren't important! My mom is the most perfect example to me of what it means to live a Christ-like life! I miss what my childhood home. My parents were able to save some things thanks to insurance paying for a disaster company to help clean things. There was asbestos contamination so that really complicated things.

 Here are some photos and videos(the first one is from my Instagram story from that time) from it all and at the end is the video I took of my parent's today.

That's my grandpa below taking photos. He got on the Deseret News! Haha

watch the video above to see more of what the inside looked like.

 This picture is extremely creepy!!

We let them store things saved from the fire in our garage and here is my Dad going through them. he needed a hazmat suit on because of asbestos. 

Most things saved were from the basement.

One of the donations was especially cute from my high school girlfriend Lacy. 

My parent's insisted that we still have the family Halloween party that they had already planned. My aunt stepped in and helped me put everything all together last minute to relieve my mom of having to do anything. My Dad has quite the sense of humor. (They are wearing Tyler's shoes)

Tyler slammed his thumb in the car door when he got home from helping. It has since fallen off and his thumb is still not back to normal! He called it "bat thumb"

The video I recorded of my parent's today.