My neighbor/shooting buddies house burned down this morning. He was at work, looks like a chimney fire and crack in the masonry which accelerated the blaze. He’s a cl. 7 FFL/truck mechanic and builds hot rods and guns in his free time. Really sucked today, fire Marshall hauling out burned up slides, frames,receivers and cooked ammo. Can of .45 acp, half the rounds cooked and the can had holes all over it. Just bought that ammo too. I offered him a place to stay but he says he’s okay. Glad for a redneck town in a blue state, fire Marshall has a big AR sticker in the window of his truck. Got to text him now, let him know Janice says to stay here. Just must hurt…losing everything.
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Thoughts and prayers to your neighbor during that hard time.
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@mattm We took a trip to Northern WI. today and we saw 2 other houses that burned down,
them wood stoves can be dangerous. 
Let us know if they need anything. 
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Makes me happy to be retired and mainly home.
When people ask how often I burn wood, I say “once a year…from October to April.”
A bit of irony. Buddy had a half load of firewood in his truck. He won’t be needing that.
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I am glad nobody was hurt, feel sorry for their loss.
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Glad your friends are ok!
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It does, believe me. Our house burned 8 years ago this month. There are still times I wonder where I put some tool or book, then remember it’s in the landfill.
When our place burned we were heating with wood and kerosene, had been for years. The fire was caused by the one “safety rated” electric heater we used to keep the bathroom toasty warm. (A warm bathroom being one of the pillars of civilization.)
Sending my best thought to your friend. I hope he was insured, and they play fair with him.
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You remind me of how often I’ve found such a heater in “run-away” with the thermostat in failure and the element just as hot as it could possibly be. (Only to recover nicely if allowed to cool off completely and restarted… Ya, stupid, I know. Anyway.) I echo the warning. Don’t trust any source of heat further than you can see it and shut it down. A home is a terrible thing to lose.
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Was it a metal can?
Yes indeed, I hated to read this.
I almost lost my house to a UL rated Panasonic table top fan on November 13, 1984. I woke up choking on smoke, rolled out of the bed and crawled out of the house - all buck naked!
I found the source of the smoke in the garage, but no flame. I felt the wall and it was HOT! Grabbed a hatchet and chopped out some sheetrock which gave it O2 to burst into flames. I’ve never been so grateful for a water hose in my life!
Afterwords, I pushed the button to test the smoke detector - it made a lot of racket just like it should. I never push the test button on a smoke detector, I always test them with smoke.
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Yup. New can, blistered and holes punched through at least one wall.That may have been the one that survived, as I don’t want to pry, but there was just a few boxes of ammo and that can brought out, and I have a good idea how much there was, and it was nearly all canned. Has me thinking “jiffy pop”.
The garage was okay, so the '39 Chevy and '50 Merc projects will live on, and fortunately the oxy/acetylene tanks didn’t blow …but the tools are gone, and not sure if the safe held up…kind of doubt it.
