Quantity Surveyor Patricia Power on her serious house fire

0:00Lunchtime Live with Andrea Gilligan on News Talk. Quantity surveyor Patricia Pairer, who's often a regular on this program, is with me here on the show today because Patricia, I'm so sorry to hear you had a really serious fire at your home this week. Tell us what happened. Oh, Andrea, I'm still upset by you and I'm still kind of processing the whole situation, but we had a house fire in our own home on Wednesday morning. It was 5am in the morning when the smoke alarm went off and the house alarm went off. I'll be honest with Andrea, that's gone off so many times. I kind of got up thinking, oh, it's the cat's set off the window or, you know, what window is it? What door? Went out to turn it off and then I said, you know, I'll just check what window it is. And I looked and I went smoke alarm and I went, huh? Now, genuinely, I opened the kitchen door and the amount of smoke and I could see the

1:00fire in the extension. Oh, my God. So as in, my husband was up after me. The kids were woke. I was panicked with scream time. Because the alarm, the smoke alarm is going off, Patricia. It's not the alarm. Oh, totally. Now we have a wire to the main house alarm. So it all goes off together, you know, and it's backed up to monitoring station. Thank God. The monitoring station called me. The many times I've told them, look, it's a false alarm. Every single time it's a false alarm, I literally screamed at the phone, ring the fire brigade. And the guy on the other end of the phone was kind of in shock. You mean ring the fire brigade? I'm like, ring the fire brigade. So look, it's panic stations. It is very much, you don't know what to do. You're kind of put a dress and get out of the house, get safe. You know, the fire brigade's on the way. My husband's ringing as well. It's panic, you know, this is five in the morning. You're trying to just get out of the house. We were, you know, we got out of the house.

2:01Then the pair had gone. I've automatically gates. The gates had locked and it was panic time. Oh my God, I need to get to gates open to get the fire engine in. You know, so like, I mean, normally I'm calm and in control, but this was fire from us. So you're trying to get the release key for the gates, move the cars out. In fairness, it took 20 minutes for the fire engines to get there. We were absolutely amazing. We'd six of them, three from Ashburn, three from John chocolate. Oh my God, these people are so brave and so fast and articulate. You know, we can't go near the zone. You can't go back into the house. They were all over us. Talk about getting it under control as quickly as they could. Their aim was to kind of stop the spread. We'd extension going into the main house to say what they could. We're right beside a crash. Right beside a wooden fence, right beside a row of trees. It was to stop the spread into the crash. These people are with 50 firefighters at a six engines. I mean, amazing. And now look, Andrea, I'm a devil for the island installation.

3:02I put in one air fire insulation, external wall. I wrapped it in that one. We built it like this new extension, we built three years ago. Like I am devastated. Yeah. I'm broken hearted. We put love sweat in tears into us. But at the same time, I am here going. I so glad to be alive and to be out and to be safe. And the thing that precious because it's something you're photographs, you know, the online about this. And thank God it was contained, wasn't it, to the extension of the house. But like as you said, it's a new extension and sure everything that goes into that. But we're just to think how fortunate you were that you heard that alarm and you got up and you got out. And you know, the just, it begres belief. Oh, it is. But at the same time, and look, I've never been through this before. The first meet I am I was one of those. It's not going to happen to us. You know, that happens to the people. I know that it's not going to happen to me that genuinely. So it's the shock. It's the processing the smoke damage to the existing houses.

4:04Incredible. We were lucky. The bedroom, I've an old house has kind of built and parts over the years. The bedrooms were fine. When I got up this morning, walks in the bedrooms into the open plan area, I went, oh my god, this might, the smoke damage is incredible. The smell in the house. And then you look out the window and you just see the burnt extension. So, but at the same time, I'm trying to be positive. We and I am so grateful to that little white box that saved my family as all I can say. It woke us up. We were not waking up to smoke. You know, you do not wake up to smoke. I went in at one stage just to get the cats out with little kitten in the den area. And I covered my mouth with a wet face cloth to go in. I lasted 10 seconds and I had to get out of there, you know, with the smoke. That, you know, it was only when you're in that situation, you realize, oh my god, this is life threatening. And when you, you know, I'm down Patricia first and you, you open that kitchen or then the extension door and you, you could see the fire,

5:04you could see the smoke there and then. Yeah. Would you any idea what happened? No, no, I just knew the extension was on fire. I could see the flames. I could see the smoke coming in through the open plan. I could see through the window of the open plan to the extension and see the flames. I knew this was not something we could put out. This was past what we could put out, you know, this was fire brigade. All hands get out of the house. This was, you know, your reaction is, let we go, you know, and look, I left doors open. I'm learning now. I should have shot doors, contain fire to stop spread of smoke. Like it's all great. At the time you learn how to do this. I'm trying to do this. I think you're just trying to do. Like girls, what we learned here, you know, but you do forget, you're in panic. You are in shock, you know, even getting the gates open. I had a box of keys. I did not know where that release key was for the gate. I didn't know how to get the fire brigade in if I couldn't open that case. I mean, I threw the box in the ground. You're running through the keys, trying to find this one key. Now I got it. My hands were shaking.

6:05This was, you are up to 90. This is panic of all. No lights. I'm screaming at kids. Give me the torch on your iPhone. You know, it is, it is that level of chaos. It is no doubt about it. But it's such a good point, though, Patricia. You know, you're just even making me think, you know, when I'm sure a lot of the listeners today are thinking, do we have a fire extinguisher? Yeah. Where are the keys? Yeah. You know, like are the batteries working in my fire? You know, like I'm sure people are thinking, Jesus, when did I last check that? Exactly. And you know what, Andrea, I have the old part of my house. I refurbished and rewired just 20 years ago. So I don't have smoke alarms in the bedrooms. I have them in the halls. I have money to level, but I don't have them in the bedrooms. And that's a new regulation out of 10 years ago. And look, I sure, to be honest, I will be now. It would definitely, but all it is is add in a little white box that's 10 euros in your local DIY store. It is not big money and it's easy to screw into the ceiling, you know, and you replace the battery then every so often.

7:08They are units, I think you need to replace every 10 years. But for the sake of it, you would not wake up in the smoke. That's, you know, and that's my, I look back and I go, we are blessed that we didn't come out of the house and body bags. And that's what the firefighters said. Anyone in the house, no, this is perfect. Don't mind what's happening. You're just, we've taken people out of houses. So you're just be grateful you're right, you know? And I know you're with us today, Patricia, because look, I know, sure, how would you not be or still up to your eyes and up to 90 and still in shock after what happened and trying to deal now with the whole aftermath of that. But I suppose the reason you're with us today is that you wanted to highlight to the listeners this afternoon, go home this evening and check those fire alarms and put them in the bedroom. I'm sure most of us don't have that. No, it's, I look, we get complacent. You go on with your day to day 11. Actually, forget about it, you really do. But like, I suppose it's highlighted for me, the importance of it and how it, I'm living to tell the tale to say that it saves me

8:10and the saving my family. I can't say otherwise. At five in the morning, we were dead asleep, you know, only for that alarm went off. We were not waking up. But even the fact that the fire alarm linked to your house alarm, like even I'm thinking that, that that was the initial. Yeah, a lurch, I suppose. Yes, it was, yeah, absolutely. And then usually you get two to three minutes and then the monitoring station would call you. Now look, and I'm so used to that, there used to me say no, it's a false alarm, it's a catheter, somebody hit a window or you know, the scene came from the shower and it's fine. So even they were in shock, I would say, there's not many cause where there is somebody shouting back down the phone to ring the fire brigade. You know, he was kind of take the back. You want me to ring the fire brigade? I'm like, yes, ring the fire brigade, you know. God love you. And I'm just, everything that goes with it now, and you know, belongings and it's part of the kitchen is at the extension you're talking about. It doesn't link from the kitchen into the extension. So the smoke would come. Yeah, the living room. You know, it's kind of an open plan, dining kitchen living room.

9:11So that's what all smoke damages, you know, but it's still intact, it's still there. We can still live in it. You know, I have to pre-fit that. We don't have to move out, we'll manage. It could be enough, a lot worse, you know. It could be a hell of a lot worse. Well, I'm delighted that you're here to tell us about this today and to highlight this for all of us, you know, as an exercise this evening, Patricia to go home and share things. Yeah. It takes two minutes just to press the button on a check if make sure it's beeped. And, you know, buy a few more, put them in your bedroom, guys, it's just really, it's a minor cost, but if it saves lives, it's incredible. And I just want to say Andrea, the firefighters that came from Ashburn and Dunshoklin, from the minute we called with 25 minutes before they were at the house, they were amazing. They were all over. We weren't allowed to move, they knew where, they just instinct the new had to get in, they knew into the house, into the back, they just knew what to do. They were amazing, they were so brave, so fearless,

10:11they got that under control. I have to say a credit to them, they were absolutely outstanding. I will try to teach them every one of them. Yeah. But, Patricia, look after yourself. I mean, I know you've a couple of, you know, Jesus, the next few weeks, now in the hassle, you know, the look, it's a small thing to have to complain about in the midst of all of this. And I'm delighted to talk to you, Patricia, thanks for highlighting that today, a program. Not at all, Andrea, just one message is, check your smoke alarms by more. That's all I can say. Simple as that. Tax tier two from a listener, just listening to Patricia's story. We had the same situation, we had a pretty big house fire back in 2018 and our home, the smoke was overwhelming. Our house was destroyed by the smoke damage, even though we tried to contain the fire to one room. We had five, four and two and a half year old at the time as well. It took months to get the place back to normal and it took months to get the smell of smoke out of the house as well. And even out of my own nose, this listener, like Patricia, happened in the early hours of the morning. It was 3am. I completely concur with everything, she has said,

11:12regarding checking smoke alarms and detector alarms in people's houses this afternoon. The email, if you want to share your own story with us, it's launchtimelive.newstark.com. That's a quantity surveyor, Patricia Power. Patricia, thanks a million for sharing your story with us on the program. Launchtime live with Andrea Gilligan. Weekdays at midday on NewsTalk. Conversation that counts.