And it started with a little spark....

Last night I was laying in bed and reading Laurel K. Hamilton's book "Bloody Bones". I was half asleep and I heard the smoke alarm go off. My son was dead to the world in the bed next to me. I think that little boy can sleep through anything. I walked out of the room into my living room and immediately saw that smoke filled it from floor to ceiling. I had know idea where it was coming from. The first place I checked was the kitchen, but the stove was shut off and there was absolutely no smoke in there. I checked the rest of the house and there was no smoke anywhere. It seemed that the smoke was confined to the living room. I looked around some more and saw a large puddle of water seeping from under the couch. I thought to myself " What the hell is this?". I moved the couch out of the way and I saw that there was smoke and small flames coming from the power strip that holds all plugs that power our salt water tank.

Picture this with smoke and flames. I panicked. All I kept thinking about was that I am almost 32 weeks pregnant, I have a 4 year old in bed, and four cats. My husband was on the road somewhere coming home from work and I had know idea what to do. I picked up the phone and called my husband. I was stammering so much that I couldn't get out what was going on. When I finally got things out, my wonderful and calm husband told me to pull the main plug for the power strip out of the wall.

With all this going on, the smoke alarm is still going off and my son is sleeping and snoring.

I couldnt believe it. Anyway, within a minute or so of unplugging the strip from the wall, the flames disappeared and the smoke alarm ceased to sound. Unfortunately, the smoke was so thick in the room you could almost cut it with a knife. Luckily, as I said before, the smoke was confined just to the living room. I ran around opening windows and BOY was it cold in my house. I continued to stammer on the phone and it took another 2-3 hours for me to finally relax. I called work and requested an emergency day off and it was approved. I sat on the porch outside, breathed fresh air and waited for my husband to get home to assess the damage. He got home at around 1215 am. Before hubby got home, I found that the fire was started when a leak sprung from a hose that came from the sub-pump attached to the fish tank. That water spewed onto the floor and into the power strip. I disconnected the hose and placed the open end into the tank. After he got home, we sopped up the water. The only real damage that we found was to our wallets. The lighted flourecent tank hood's plug was damaged beyond recognition and the filter plug was done too. The power strip, as you can imagine was not able to be salvaged.

Thank God.. It wasn't worse. The only that was almost not tolerable was the stink for the melted plastic. It's still lingering it's ugly head in my living room and candles are not helping it go away.