porch en fuego!

The porch at my folks' house caught on fire the other day. Yikes! Mom was drinking her morning cup of coffee at the window that overlooks the deck, and saw what she thought was smoke coming up from the side. She ran out and half of the side was smouldering & flames coming off the top. So she runs inside, yells to my dad (who is in the shower) - "the deck is on fire!" He comes running downstairs in a towel and they both grab fire extinguishers to put out the fire on the deck, then turn the hose on the rest of the wood to make sure it was out. Clearly, after 38 years, the couple that fights fires together, stays together.

So here's what they think happened - lots of rain came down over the course of a few days, some got into one of the deck lights that were mounted on the sides, and shorted out the wiring; this smouldered throughout the night, and had caught fire in the morning, so it was extremely lucky this didn't go any further. It's approximately 8 ft. long, 1 foot tall segment that was burned through. There is a hole in the deck where the light that caught fire fell onto the platform and began to burn through the wood. very, very lucky it wasn't worse!