Warning, Warning!!!

You know the saying about lightning not striking twice? Well, heat guns do!!!!! Four years ago, we had a fire at our home which was the result of me not unplugging the heat gun when not in use. Our little doggie, Scoob, manage to knock the lead of the heat gun with his extremely waggy tail and as it landed on the floor it turned on the flick switch. As we were not at home at the time, it smoldered for many hours causing an amazing amount of smoke damage to our house. It was so bad that we had to move out and live in a hotel for three weeks whilst the insurance company arranged for everything to be cleaned or thrown away and the whole house rebuilt and redecorated.

Since that awful incident, I have been very careful with heat guns and I always switch them off in the workshop every night. Yesterday I had the shock of my life when we had a fire at the shop and yes, it was another heat gun incident. Although the damage was nowhere as severe as the house fire, I got more than I shock when I found the fire.

I had been working in the workshop on new class samples and popped downstairs to the shop to get something for my project. As I was returning to the workshop, I could hear a noise and realised that the only thing it could possible be was a heat gun. I ran up the stairs to find my chair on fire!!! Seriously on fire!!!! I mean big, giant flames on fire!!! So there I am yelling for Karen whilst trying to smother the fire. I realised that Karen would never hear me so I jumped hard on the floor and she thought I had fallen so came running up the stairs at the speed of light. Apparently I yelled at her to call 911 (I obviously only watch American TV programmes!!) and it also dawned on me that I didn't have anything large enough to smother the fire so ran down to the shop for the fire extinguisher. Then panic set in and I couldn't pull the pin on the extinguisher. Karen was amazing, she just took over and after a short struggle with said gadget, she put the fire out.

It took 15 minutes for the fire brigade to arrive, then three of them and two ambulances came!!!As you can imagine, it was not a nice experience but if Karen had not had her sensible head on on that day, it would have been absolutely devastating, so I can't thank her enough.

So the reason for this post is to warn everyone, please make sure you do not leave your heat gun switched on at the wall when you are not using it. I was only gone for two minutes....it toppled off the table and landed on a foam chair and the result is this.

We need to have a new carpet, it has taken a day and a half to clean up the mess that the fire extinguisher made, we have to redecorate the workshop and try to get rid of the smell!!!! But, I am thankful, Karen and I are both safe, we are insured and it will all be fine but if I can stop this from happening to just one person then that would be great. After all, it has now happened to me twice!!!

Having said all of the above, I am upset that I lost my two pieces of artwork and I am even more upset that I lost my Ranger apron that I got when I went to Ranger U., but I have really enjoyed the chocolates that were sent to me by a dear friend aka "the chocolate fairy" to cheer me up!!!

Now go and unplug that heat gun!!!!

Lin x