The Roof, The Roof, The Roof
is on Fire!
January 25 will forever be a difficult day for me. On January 25, 2003 I lost my garage and all of its contents to the goddess of flames. She snuck into the place under cover of night and then slowly consumed the wooden structure while projecting her searing breath down upon my precious collection of motorcycles, tools, outdoor gear, sea kayaking accessories and childhood memories. Yes, that night will forever be etched in my memory as a painful event.
Earlier that evening I had been in San Francisco enjoying the first Supercross Race to be held at PacBell Park. The evening was punctuated with wild maneuvers, 2-stroke smoke, dirt and cheering. It was a great time! When it was over I wandered over to my Triumph Tiger and geared up for the quick ride home. It was a touch on the chilly side but I was pretty comfy in my cold weather riding gear. As I pulled into the driveway I glanced down and noticed a rather significant event. My 1996 Tiger now had 90001 miles on the odometer. Considering my riding habits I could now look forward to breaking the 100k mark by mid-summer. Whoo hoo!
I put the Tiger to bed and then puttered around the garage a bit. Kari’s little XT was sitting there looking pretty forlorn. She had run into a couple of minor problems with it and I was helping her to get it back up and running again. I finished tidying up, shut off the lights and walked over to the house. Soon I was in bed burrowed down into the comforter enjoying the warmth of my two fuzzy cats curled up next to me.
About 20 minutes later something woke me. I had a funny feeling and decided I had to get out of bed to see what was up. Looking out the back window I saw tiny wisps of smoke curling up out of the edges of my garage. OH MY GOD! FIRE!!!!
I hurriedly tossed on a pair of pants and raced out the back door. Opening the back door of the garage I was greeted by a large volume of smoke. I quickly grabbed the garden hose and started spraying randomly into the interior. I tried the light switch but nothing happened. I tried going into the garage to hit the switch for the garage door but the acrid smoke pushed me right back out. I frantically ran back into the house and grabbed my cell phone. 911
Within ten minutes the fire department arrived. It felt more like an hour but when your life is melting away in front of you time races by. They casually walked up, assessed the situation and then grabbed a chainsaw. Two quick cuts made mincemeat of my garage door. Soon there was a 2-inch line feeding copious amounts of water into my now steaming garage. Funny thing, I never really saw any flames. It was mostly smoke with an occasional orange glow from within. But I knew it wasn’t going to be good.
Standing there in the middle of the street wearing nothing but a pair of Levis surrounded by firemen, fire trucks and hoses was an intensely surreal setting. I felt fairly helpless and it didn’t help that everyone in the neighborhood was standing on the other side of the street taking in the scene. I did manage to call Kari and soon she was standing there by my side lending a little moral support. Around 2am the fire department buttoned things up and left leaving me standing there amid the ruins of my garage. I finally wandered back into the house and crawled in bed again. I’m not sure how I managed to get back to sleep with all of that adrenaline going but I did.
In the morning I slowly got out of bed, got dressed and walked out to survey the damage. From what I could see the bulk of the fire was located in the roof and rafters of the garage. The walls really didn’t burn much at all. Essentially it was like a giant broiler projecting heat straight down onto my motorcycles, tools, and various goodies that I had stored in the garage. My brand new sea kayak was lying on the floor twisted into a plastic pretzel. All of the plastic storage boxes that I used for keeping motorcycle parts, camping gear and the like sorted out were all collapsed in upon themselves and the items stored within. It was really pretty ugly.
I slowly worked my way through my bikes. Without a doubt they were all totaled. The Tiger and my Katana looked the worse of all. The XR had a full tank of gas but this must have helped keep the plastic tank cool because it had bubbled some but not broken through. My cute little SV650 was now a blackened lump. Kari’s little XT was barely recognizable. It was lying on its side covered in rubble. My helmets were all charred shells missing visors and with the foam liners completely disintegrated. It was all pretty disheartening.
In time I recovered from the shock and got busy contacting the insurance companies and began making a list of things lost. To my surprise Allstate came through with a check for the structure within two weeks time! Progressive was not far behind with a check for my SV and then a check for the Tiger. Pretty amazing! It took a bit longer for the check for the personal property but that was due to my taking more than a month to compile my list of missing and damaged property. Also the adjuster had to crunch all the numbers based on original purchase price, age and such in order to provide me a prorated settlement. All in all I must say I was very pleased with the response from both companies.
The one question asked by just about everyone is, “What caused it?” To this day I really don’t know for sure. Allstate sent out an investigator. He sifted through the rubble and determined the starting point. It was adjacent to my toolbox and drill press. After a bit of sleuthing he felt that the drill press must have shorted out and started an electrical fire. He hauled the thing off and took it apart at his shop but never found any conclusive evidence to prove his theory. I do know that I bought the thing at a reduced price because it had minor damage to the top cover over the belts. Maybe there was further damage that I didn’t know about. Who knows? It worked fine during the time I had it but then most things do work fine before they go south.
Timing is everything when it comes to construction, or reconstruction. I was already knee deep in remodeling my kitchen when this all came about. So I put my head down and finished that work before delving into the new project. Since I was doing a replacement in kind and still had the concrete pad and wall studs up the rebuild was rather straightforward. I was able to rough out my drawings on a shareware CAD program at home before taking everything to work and compiling my drawings in a larger format for the planning office.
The Alameda Planning Department was relatively gentle with me allowing me to skip the lengthy process of a planning review since I was rebuilding what I had before the fire. They signed off on the drawings and collected my money for the permit. Now it was just a matter of buying materials and putting the damn thing together!
For the most part I did it all myself. I managed to save time and effort by ordering the truss assemblies in a pre-constructed package. My Dad and best friend Tony helped me get those up and in place in a single day. My friend Brenda came by and helped me install the sheathing, moisture barrier and siding over successive weekends. A roofing company came out and ripped the roof off of my house and installed a new one along with the new roof for the garage. Five Star Electric came out and installed the new distribution panel and wiring in a matter of a couple days. With only one minor exception by the inspector I managed to get this done in relatively little time. By the time November rolled around I had all the fittings in, the trim done and a new rollup garage door installed. The city inspector came by and signed it off with a firm handshake and “Enjoy your new toy box!” Hey, how did he know?
So today, a full year after the fire I am pretty much done with the garage. Oh sure, I haven’t completely worked out the storage situation and there are some things I want to do out in front of the garage but the basic structure is there. I’ve replaced all of my bikes or at least the one’s I wanted to replace. I’ve kept a couple of the crispy one’s too. Not sure what I’ll do with them but they are reminders of what happened. For the most part I have rebuilt my tool collection and am basically ready to move on. I guess the one thing I’m most grateful about is the fact that I only lost some “stuff” in this whole ordeal. No one was hurt nor did it impact anyone else but myself. As a friend of mine says, “It’s a fresh start. You’ve gotten rid of things you had been dragging around for 20 years or more. Now you can begin again with a clean slate.”
Craig
PS. A word about insurance. One thing I should note here is my lessons learned regarding insurance. If you have any doubts about your coverage and what you can afford to lose you should definitely consult your policy. $1000 deductible means you lose $1000 right off the top. I did. Kari had her little XT in my garage. It died a horrible death. My insurance does not cover her vehicle. In fact the vehicle insurance only covers the vehicle. Homeowners insurance only covers the personal property and specifically excludes vehicles. Since Kari only had liability coverage on the XT she lost out. Also, she had a bag of Dirtbike gear in the garage. That was a complete loss as well. Again my homeowner’s insurance only covers my personal property and that of anyone living at the house. In this case since Kari doesn’t live here her own insurance should be consulted. Since she has no renter’s insurance she’s out of luck, a tough lesson to learn. Of course I shared the wealth and gave her some cash from my settlement to ease the pain a bit. Still, it’s good from time to time to review your policies and decide what you can live with…or as the case may be without.