Back in 2014 I lived in a house with 3 other roommates. One in particular loved to have the fireplace running, and I was never really a fan of the idea. One Saturday, he starts up the fireplace at 10 AM and just lets it run all day. Him and my other roommates took off for the bars at about 6 PM. I was recovering from a horrible flu bug and was finally starting to feel better, so I sat down on the couch with a whiskey ginger ale, my dog, and my roommate's dog (the one who left the fireplace running) and watched How To Train Your Dragon Two.
I was making plans to head out and meet up with some friends when I look over and saw smoke just billowing out of the electrical socket near the fireplace. I pulled a plug out of that socket and the smoke came out thicker. It was white smoke, and not black, so I decided to look around for the source. I go into the basement, see nothing. I then start to walk upstairs and notice both dogs are now standing right by me with their hair raised. Naturally, I start to feel uneasy. My bedroom was on the wall that the fireplace was under, so when I get to my room, I find that I can't even see my bed from the doorway because there is so much smoke. I ran downstairs, turned off the gas to the fireplace, then put the dogs on their leashes and grabbed my phone to call 911.
The call goes as such:
Operator: "911, what is your emergency?" Me: "Yeah, hey, I think my house might be on fire? There's a ton of smoke in my room. I turned off the fireplace and there's still a ton of smoke billowing into the living room..." Operator: "Wait, so you're still in the house?" Me: "Yeah, I..." Operator: "Get the fuck out of the house!" Me: "Oh, yeah, I guess I should.."
She literally said that to me. Anyways, the fire department arrived like 5 minutes later. The response time was unreal. Unfortunately at this point I could see what looked like a bonfire occurring in my bedroom. I suffered a total loss of property, only getting my dog, my roommate's dog, and the clothes on me out of there. Two of my other roommate's had some minor damage to their things, but the roommate who liked to run the fireplace had his room on the other side of the house, so he only lost a TV in the living room.
That night, after the fire department said it was ok to go inside, I walked into my room and saw that my grandpa's Navy hat and the last fifth of scotch we ever drank together were sitting there in my closet, mostly intact with minor burn marks. The rest of my closet was just my melted clothes. No idea how they survived, but both of those currently sit in my apartment in a nice display case.