At the Scene of a Home Fire

Almost everyday Chicagoans hear about a house fire in the news. It’s something that happens so often and impacts so few at a time that we tend not to give it too much attention. It’s disregarded as “another fire somewhere in the city”, but the story looks very different if you experience it personally. It’s not numbers you look at then, it’s the faces. And knowing that you’re standing in someone’s burned up home makes the fire very real and extremely scary.

Last week, I was on scene with Red Cross responders at a fire on Chicago’s south side. The blaze started at 1:30 p.m. in a two story home which housed a family of four. Within minutes, the flames got completely out of hand and swallowed up the entire structure. Three of the residents were not at home at the time, but unfortunately, the one person who was there, was trapped on the first floor bedroom. The firefighters soon came to his rescue and dragged him out, but not before he received serious burns and had inhaled a lot of the smoke.

When I arrived with the Red Cross disaster volunteer team, the house and the family were in a mess. The mother, Catalina, was desperately trying to salvage some items from the char ridden house. One of her sons, Marcelo, was in the hospital with serious injuries, and her other son, Jose, was pacing around the place with an expression of complete daze and confusion. The frame of the house was still standing but everything else was in ruins. There were big holes in the ceiling and the floors. The windows were out and all the furniture was badly burned.

The Red Cross volunteers sat the family down in their van, helped calm them down, listened to their story and comforted them as best as they could. They also provided them with assistance for food, shelter and clothing.

The immediate security that your donations provide to the victims of a fire help them recover from the shock of the incident, and gives them a warm and safe place to stay and collect their thoughts. Every little bit counts-ask someone who’s been through a fire.

Keep yourself and your family safe from fires- click here for some fire safety tips.

Written by Maliha Sadiq

Home Fires Destroy Memories Every 80 Seconds

The American Red Cross responds to fires more than any other disaster. More than hurricanes. Earthquakes. Tornadoes. Fires occur in the United States every 80 seconds.

In Chicago, disaster volunteers are called to home fires about three to four times a day on a normal day. They arrive on scene oftentimes while firefighters are still there, and they provide families with food, shelter, infant formula, teddy bears for the kids, access to medication… whatever the family needs to survive.

This relief is almost entirely delivered by volunteers and funded by donors.

When we arrive, more often than not, we encounter families who are grateful. Though they may have lost everything, they say “thank goodness” that their loved ones survived.

“Everything else can be replaced,” they say.

When a family survives a fire without deaths or injuries, they usually first think of their pictures – the memories that can’t be replaced. One of my most striking memories as a disaster volunteer was helping this family wipe away smoke damage from baby photos that we were relieved to find intact.

With a single click, you can capture a memory with your camera and keep it forever, but only, if your home is not one of the 70,000 that will burn this year.

Today, in a single click and in a matter of moments, you can join a movement on Facebook to honor those who aren’t so lucky.

Visit http://every80seconds.com/and get a glimpse of what it’s like to lose your most precious memories. At the end of your visit, all of your photos will be fully recovered.

At some point in your life, though, someone close you will lose their photos forever to a real fire and will not be able to recover them. Be a part of their relief, before they need it.

Share the every80seconds.com experience with the people you love most.

Pledge a donation for every photo you can’t imagine life without.

Feel grateful.

Here's how your donation will help if you take the extra step to help a family that has been devestated by fire:

- $3 provides a comfort kit with hygiene items that preserves a client's diginity
- $6 provides a wool blanket to keep them warm if they are displaced
- $10 provides one meal
- $20 provides two meals
- $25 provides breakfast, lunch and dinner to a shelter resident who lost their home in a fire
- $50 provides five blankets for a family
- $75 provides food and shelter for a cleint for one day in a shelter
- $100 provides ten hot meals
- $150 provides supplies, such as soy formula, wipes, diapers, etc, to shelter one infant
- $200 provides one month's worth of emergency supplies for two families
- $1,000 saves the day - covers a day's worth of disaster response in the Greater Chicago region.

The every80seconds.com experience requires a high speed browser and internet connection, as well as Facebook connect permissions.

Hope is the Universal Cure

I’ve never been one to preach about looking for signs in your life. I don’t analyze a relationship and declare that there are "clear signs that we are meant to be". I don’t feel a connection when I talk about buying a pair of shoes and then suddenly my roommate buys them. I don’t read my daily horoscope and wait for the prediction to come true. That’s just a coincidence. But today, when I needed to find hope in a horrible disaster, I received a sign like no other.

As I stepped out of the Red Cross van today into the biting cold, I was laced with sprinkles of snowflakes. At first glance, it was hard to tell which house had been affected by the fire; many of the houses on the block were already boarded up and abandoned. However, once I rounded the van, there was no questioning where the disaster had hit.


The living room had exploded out onto the front yard. A charcoaled pull-out couch was propped up on the wire fence that gated the property and it looked as if it was about to pull the entire fence to the ground. The remains of a once cushioned chair sat in the middle of the debris with the springs jarring out the middle of the seat. I couldn’t help but imagine what the living room probably looked like a week ago – full of family and friends celebrating what they were thankful for. Now what was left? I stared up at the grey sky and felt the snow hit my face. A piece of siding was swinging back and forth in the wind towards the top of the house. Everything was completely dark inside. I found myself searching for some sign of hope amidst the horror in front of me. As I griped the top of the fence with my exposed fingers and felt the cold metal, I looked down upon what I would consider a miracle.

A heart. Besides the rubble of the fire, a heart lay neatly on the ground as a reminder that there is always hope even when everything looks dark. I wanted to take my newly found hope and share it with the owner of the house but she was too distraught to come out of her neighbor’s home. I am sure if she saw the heart in her front yard, she would smile a little bit because she would know that she is not alone in her journey to recovery.

Helping out those in the need, whether it is in your own community or around the world, can be hard, especially now when money is tight. But did you know that a $25 donation will supply 5 blankets to disaster victims? Maybe a blanket doesn’t seem as important as food or shelter, but as everyone in Chicago knows, today, December 1st, brought Chicago’s first snowfall. A warm blanket means a lot to a disaster victim, particularly on a cold Chicago winter day or night. We are ready to respond to a lot of fires in the Chicagoland area this winter. We know that there will be more than usual (3 to 4 every single day is average) because, for whatever reason, the Holidays bring fire season. While the Red Cross will respond and offer relief to the people affected by these disasters, we need help. Please think about donating to the Chicago Red Cross this holiday season, even if it is just a blanket.

I found hope today in the last place I expected to find happiness. The next time you doubt that there is a sign of light in the midst of darkness, take a breath, step back, and take another look. You may be surprised at what you find.