Smoke-Filled Chaos

Two nights ago I awoke to the sound of my hubby racing up the steps yelling my name and the screeching of the upstairs smoke detector where our baby girl Scamp was sleeping. It was 2:30 am, and the blaring alarm was actually coming through the baby monitor. I was still in quite a daze, but the smell of smoke caused me to rush to throw on clothes and shoes just in case we had to go outside. I prayed frantically that God would let us find where the smoke was coming from.

As I was about to climb the steps to Scamp's room, I saw Beef racing in from outside in nothing but his boxers. He didn't think twice about any of our neighbors being night owls until after he came back in. He told me to go get Scamp and look around to see if I saw any smoke. I reached the top to find her still laying in her bed, grinning at me as if nothing strange was going on. I didn't see any smoke, just smelled it, and had to take a moment to sit down and catch my breath. The feeling of my heart pounding through my chest had made me a little light-headed.

I brought Scamp downstairs to cuddle on the couch until we could figure out what was going on. I had already offered to call the fire department, but we couldn't find the source of the odor. Beef had already checked nearly every electrical outlet in the house and was now laying on the floor underneath a side table in the living room sniffing the vent to see if the smell got any worse, and it did. He thought the smell was probably the emergency heat coming on and causing the lent and dust in the coils and filters to catch fire.

The emergency heater in our HVAC unit normally causes the stench of smoke when it comes on for the first time every year, but it has never caused the fire alarm to go off, especially from the alarm upstairs. The smell did in fact accentuate with the heater blowing, so we settled back down to try and catch a few more hours of rest.

Beef decided to sleep upstairs with Scamp. I don't think I could have had it any other way. I fell back to sleep and awoke to Scamp's chatter around 9:00 am or so. Beef later told me he hadn't gotten a wink of sleep after the alarm went off. He stayed awake listening and checking every creek in the wall. He wanted to be sure there wasn't anything smoldering in the walls. What a brave hubby! I am so lucky to have such a good man that would fore go sleep to keep his family safe. And thank God we were all safe.