The Great Fire

It all started on February 9th 2001, In Glenwood Springs, Colorado, my sister Mary and I were making dresses out of scrap material. It was a sunny day, and as on a typical February morning, there was snow on the ground. The birds were chirruping on the branches outside, we could hear them sing in our downstairs room, our window was closed to keep out the crisp morning air, and any crazy bug that might be flying around during this time in the morning.
I was 7 years old at the time and attending 1st grade at The Waldorf School on the Roaring Fork in Carbondale, Colorado. The school was 20 minutes from home and every morning we would wake up at 6:30 AM to get ready for school to start at 8:00 AM, We would wake up and Mom would start breakfast, we would eat, then we would all pack up in the big white van we had parked in our driveway. On this particular morning Mary was not feeling well, Mom told her to go to school and if she didn't feel better by lunch she should come home. So all 5 of us, Me, Mary, Mason, Matthew and Mom, packed ourselves in the van and mom started it up, we drove to school and we went on with our classes.
That morning I had Morning lesson, Form drawing and math, by lunch time Mary had called home sick, Mom decided to come and pick her up, and I stayed at school for the rest of the day. I had Handiwork class in the afternoon, I had never enjoyed it but I had to go anyway, we were learning the rhyme 'Under the fence, catch the sheep, bring it back and off it leaps.' to help us with our knitting.
When it was time to go home I met my best friend Eva at the door of the school, she was going to come over the next afternoon for a play date, we had been planning this for ages! We were so excited.
We went home and had dinner, After dinner I went to read in my bed, Mary had been sick home since Mom had picked her up at lunch and was now fast asleep in Moms bed. I picked up 'Curious George' which lay on my bedside table and began to read, I read until about 10:00, which is probably when i fell asleep reading. When I woke-up there was smoke, it was just a thin tendril but it scared the heck out of me, I looked down and saw that my lamp had fallen off my bedside table on to my comforter and was burning a hole in it. I quickly picked up my light and put it on my bedside table, there was a slightly brown spot where the lamp had begun to burn the blanket, I hoped I would not have to explain what happened in the morning. So the next thing that happened could have come as answer to that wish,

it could have come as punishment for leaving my light on, or the light incident could have been a warning preceding the disaster that was yet to come, whatever it was, this is what happened next:
I woke five minutes later, I was scared to death, and for no reason at all, I tried convincing myself that nothing was going to happen, but I sighed as I rose from my bed and walked up the short flight of stairs and through the hallway down which Moms bedroom was located, I walked into her room, she sensed i had come in and asked me what was wrong, I told her that i was scared and wanted to sleep with her.
As I crawled into bed it occurred to me how stupid this was, I just wanted to tell Mom to forget it ever happened and then walk back down the hallway back to my room, but I didn't, I snuggled up close to Mom and fell asleep almost instantly. That was the last thing I remember before it happened.
I woke up groggily it was around 2:00 Am, my throat was scratchy, and the air around me was hard to breathe, I tried to take a deep breath, tried to get some fresh air into my lungs, but i just coughed it out, I turned towards Mom and i saw Mary was lying on the opposite side of her, I called out to Mom and my voice sounded muffled and weak, I called again, but nothing happened. At the time i was to little to understand how serious this situation was, but i just wanted clean air so i shook Mom until i heard her ask, 'What Michelle?',
'Why is the room so smoky?' I inquired
She didn't answer.
I wanted fresh air and I didn't want to go alone so I persisted 'Mom, but the room is smokey!'
She didn't respond
I repeat the comment, this time shaking her back into wakefulness, this time she opened her eye, and when she saw that I was right her eyes widened,
'Mary wake up!' She almost yelled ' We have to get out of the house!'
I didn't understand why she was so scared, but I really wanted fresh air so I didn't argue. Mom ran to the window and she struggled to open it, I watched as Mom stuck her head out the window and took a deep breath of fresh air. I waited and eventually Mom turned around and came and grabbed our hands, She lead us out into the hall and I immediately saw why she was so scared, there blocking the steps leading to the downstairs was a line of flame, this wouldn't of worried us much but the boys had their room

downstairs.
Mom ran to the closest window to get another breath of air, Mary and I ran to the stairs, We started yelling down into the boys room, hoping the boys would wake up and would find a way out, Mom came and pulled us away from the fire, she lead us out the back door, the chilly air nipped at us as we left the hot interior of the burning house. It was freezing outside, especially in our nightgowns. Mom stood there for a minute, looking around the yard, looking for something, then she spotted it, a ski propped up against the house, as she lunged for it she stumbled, an obvious sign of the intoxication from inside the house. She grabbed the ski and then proceeded to walk around to the other side of the house, Mary and I, not sure where we were going, followed after her. She went around to the front of the house, we had exited from the back and we rarely used the front door, she made her way to the big window that belonged to my brothers room, she went up to it and as she pulled the , and Mary and I realized what she was doing as she swung the ski over her shoulder. The ski crashed through the window, the glass shattering in a million pieces. We watched as Mom reached in and pulled out Mason, he was wide awake. There was music coming from inside the room, we couldn't figure out what it was, but when mom pulled out our 2 year old brother we discovered that he was the source of it, he was singing as he was pulled from the broken window out of the burning room into the cold snowy evening.
Now that we were all out, Mom had time to think straight, the first thing she though of was getting in the car and going to a hotel, but that didn't work since the keys had been left inside and we couldn't go get them. We couldn't come up with any ideas so we walked over to the neighbors house. Obviously we woke them since this all happened before most people got up, they answered the door, opening it after we had knocked about 20 times. They looked upset until they saw our faces and the burning house in the background. They ushered us in, all 5 of us, and let Mom use the phone to call our dad after the fire department had been contacted.
5 minutes later we heard the wail of the sirens as the fire truck swung onto our road, they were at our house within the minute. A knock came on the door, unexpected and sudden, dad wouldn't be here for another 2 hours or so, who would it be? We opened the door to find that representatives from the Red Cross had come with the fire truck, they came in and talk to Mom for what seemed like an hour, then Mom called me over.

'What was it like?' the man asked 'Could you see anything?'
'No, it was like floating down the hallway, the smoke was so thick I couldn't see very far.' I answered. He thanked us for our time and then packed up the emergency supplies he was required to bring and left.
Two and a half hours later, someone knocked on the door again, we had set up a bed close to the fireplace to sleep, I kept drifting off but couldn't actually sleep, so I listened as the door was opened and Dad walked in. I couldn't make out the words, as Mom and Dad talked quietly to each other.
A little while later the came into the room, and woke all of us up, they told us that we were going to a hotel so that our friends could get a good night's sleep. We all got out of our warm bed and put away the blankets that we had used to make the bed. We thanked our host and left, on the way Mom and Dad explained that the Red Cross had agreed to pay for our hotel for the night so that we didn't have to disturb our friends or relatives in the middle of the night, but first we were going to Wal-Mart to get some clothes for tomorrow morning when we went to school.
When we got there we each picked out some underwear, shirts, pants and socks then we got a snack from the food section. We went to the checkout counter and paid for our purchases, then left the store. We ate in the car as Dad drove us to the hotel, he had come all the way from Greeley which was a 6 hour drive, he must have been exhausted. We reached the hotel and checked into our rooms, when we got up we organized who was sleeping where then climbed into bed and fell asleep.

The next morning we woke up, it wasn't really early but it wasn't late either. We went downstairs to the continental breakfast that they held every morning, we had some cereal, then got in the car to go to school.
When we got there it was a little past morning lesson, around 10:30 or so, We entered the quiet hall of the school, and walked down the hall, we turned onto the hallway that both Mary and I's classrooms were on, and froze. There blocking the hallway was a HUGE pile of stuff, everything from clothes to toys and back again. The pile filled the hallway and overflowed past the designated area that had been set aside for this purpose. We walked up to it, and saw it, a sign with the word "Strehl's" printed in black ink on a green piece of paper. This was all for us, how had the news spread so quickly? the story about our unfortunate accident didn't appear in newspapers until early this morning, how had they organized an effort this

big? With so little time? It didn't matter, the fact was, they had done it, and it was really nice of them.
This experiance change each of our lives dramatically. A life and death situation really changes the way you look at the world, especially if someone is there for you afterwards.