REAL ESTATE DOLLARS AND SENSE

Fire! Fire!

In this issue of Real Estate Dollars and Sense, I will deviate a bit from my usual format to discuss a more personal event that took place recently – one that, quite frankly, rattled me and my family like never before. When we think about real estate, we think about buying when prices are low, selling when prices are high, or renting out to generate passive income and intergenerational wealth, but in many cases, real estate simply means “home”. Earlier this week, a fire broke out in my son’s bedroom mid-day and shook us all to the core in what is supposed to be our safe place – our home.

Here’s how the events unfolded – while I was out preparing for a new listing of mine on a Saturday afternoon, my son decides (and rightfully so!) that it was a perfect day for some RC car racing. He plugs in his RC car charger in his bedroom as he usually does, with the battery pack sitting on the carpet next to the outlet. About an hour into the charging cycle, while sitting at his desk in front of his laptop, he sees from his peripheral vision, an orange flame shoot past his head on his left side. He turns around in his chair and sees that his RC car battery had exploded and erupted into two separate baseball-sized fires on the carpet of his bedroom! Thinking quickly, he jumped out of his chair, yanked the plug from the outlet, and yelled “Fire! Fire!”. Seconds later, every smoke detector in the house was blaring in full “Fire Alert!” mode. Fortunately, my wife and daughter sprang into action, adrenalin pumping, to put out the fires by dousing them both with several cups of water (albeit without much consideration as to whether water was the appropriate flame retardant in this particular case). We later learned that water was in fact appropriate since the Li-ion battery contained very little lithium metal to react with water.

Once the fires had been put out, my wife called me (with fire alarms blaring in the background) asking if I could make my way home because all the smoke detectors had ‘triggered’. She calmly insisted that everyone and everything was ok but asked that I come home ASAP. I was about 5min away from home and roughly 10 seconds into my drive, I thought to myself - did she say ALL the smoke detectors had been triggered? A false alarm that sets off all detectors seemed extremely unlikely. At that point, panic set in as I frantically drove home while trying to get my wife back on the phone – no answer. Did my wife and kids think that it was a “false alarm?” Were they in danger but just not realizing it? The short 5min drive home felt like an eternity as my mind started to play all sorts of “what-if” scenarios. When I reached home, I was relieved to find that my wife and kids were ok – although understandably shaken. The two large, charred sections of carpet and the smoky scent still apparent in my son’s room were all overshadowed by the feelings of being blessed to have escaped the situation with our safety intact and only minor damage.

As with any traumatic event, we took the opportunity as a family to review some basic fire safety protocols. Together, we compiled a list of “lessons learned/reminders” that we’d like to share with you, particularly as we approach the holidays. 8 Lessons Learned / Reminders on Fire Safety: 1. Avoid leaving lithium ion, lithium polymer (or any) batteries unattended while charging 2. If a smoke detector goes off, never treat it as a false alarm (particularly if several go off at once), and check out every room in the house (i.e. not just the kitchen) 3. Always ensure smoke/carbon monoxide detectors are in operable condition, replacing batteries at recommended intervals 4. Never remove smoke detectors from any room – not even temporarily 5. Always have fire extinguishers on hand (with current annual inspection tags) and instruct all family members on their proper usage 6. Review evacuation/egress plans from every room in the house, particularly from second-story rooms 7. Familiarize yourselves with the recommended protocols to extinguish various types of fire (i.e. grease, battery, electrical, hot candle wax, etc). NOTE: Hot candle wax and water do NOT mix and can result in an explosion! 8. For a more complete guide on responding to lithium-ion battery fires, refer to the U.S Fire Administration website here: https://www.usfa.fema.gov/blog/ig-042822.html While our hope is that no one has to experience what we just went through, we also hope that the list above provides you with some useful information to help keep you and your loved ones safe.

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