Landscape Fire

I thought I was having a normal week, full of our regular activities & nothing to blog about. Until yesterday. I came home from the gym around 7:00 in the morning & I thought I saw a patch of fog when I pulled up the driveway, so I got out of my car, walked around & didn't see anything so I thought I was imagining it since it was still early & the sun wasn't up yet. Then, I smell smoke all day. I smelled at home all morning & then I went to run errands & I still smelled it, so again, I think I am making this up. Finally, I pick up the girls from school & as I am pulling into the driveway, I see smoke. Again. And this time I really smell it, so by now I am determined I am not making it up. I left the girls in the car & went to the front of the house & it was an obvious cloud of smoke. I was nervous because it looked like it was coming from the landscaping in front of the laundry room. We  have a water line & a gas line there & I couldn't see any obvious flames so I couldn't tell where it was coming from. The house? The landscaping? And I was afraid to turn the water hose on it because I didn't know what would happen. What if I sprayed water & then it combusted?

 

So I called the fire department, tried to explain what was going on & the next thing I knew:

 

 

 

Apparently there wasn't anything else going on in Frisco so they sent 2 firetrucks, 1 ambulance & 1 fire captain. I was so embarrassed! All of my neighbors were freaking out & coming over to check on us because they had literally taken over our half of the street:

 

 

This lasted for about an hour but we finally got everything resolved & no one was hurt. Our landscapers had come the day before & mulched our yard for spring. Apparently they had knocked over one of our uplights. We have 6 on the front of our house & they are on timers so our house is lit up at night. The one they knocked down had been on all night, facing down & combination of the heat & the new mulch, started a small fire. I guess it burned all night & then even when the light turned off during the day, the heat & the reflection from the sun continued to cook it:

 

 

Who knows how long it had been burning - almost 24 hours? It burned & melted the soaker hose that goes around the foundation of our house, all of the mulch in that area became ashes, it burned part of the shrub & it burned the light & some of the wiring:

 

 

Thank goodness I was diligent & had them come by because if we hadn't checked it out it probably would have sparked flames eventually & would have spread to the house very quickly since it was in the landscaping against the house. We lucked out to have minimal damage that can be repaired quickly & easily but it was definitely an exciting afternoon:

 

 

The firefighters were so nice, especially to the children. They let both of the girls & some of our neighbors check out the firetruck:

 

 

Even Bryan took the opportunity for a photo op:

 

 

See the girl on the end? She is actually a FISD student who is shadowing the EMT. Pretty cool! I didn't even know our schools offered the opportunity for them to do that.

 

Let's just say we are extremely thankful that nothing more happened & we definitely learned our lesson. We will do a better job of checking the house after we have major yard work done & we plan on sharing this story with our landscaper so this problem won't happen to anyone else!