First off, thanks for the e-mails from concerned people wondering why I have not updated my blog recently and why I missed last night’s board meeting–the only one I have ever missed. I am still here.

Some people may be wondering how I became aware of the Feb. 5 fire on Spotswood Furnace Road in which Sandy Hill died. From experience, anytime I write an article about a fire and rescue incident, too often it turns into a career vs volunteer battle.

I decided to dig deeper into this fire because a retired county resident who enjoys listening to his scanner called me and asked me if I had any details about this fire. I told him all I had was what was in the original story printed on Feb. 6. He said that I really should listen to the dispatch recordings because he was very concerned with what he heard.

Since then I have interviewed many, many people. I requested the recordings. No career fire and rescue employee was talking in my ear. No volunteer was talking in my ear.

We simply talked to a man who happened to hear the incident unfold through his scanner. But there is a very important lesson in what this gentleman did later.

He found a Web site with a 30-day database of scanner traffic and he was able to find and copy this Feb. 5 incident so he could listen to it over and over with his wife.

They were so concerned that they decided to develop a plan of what to do if their home caught on fire. They made sure all of their smoke detectors worked. They made sure every window opened. They talked about how they would drop to the floor and crawl to a window that would lead them outside to a piece of the roof they could sit on until rescuers arrived.

When you go home tonight and have dinner with your family, maybe it would be a good idea to talk to your children about what to do if someone smells smoke or sees fire. Make a plan of how you will exit your room or the house. Check your smoke detectors. Check that all windows open freely.

(Since this post, I have been contacted by a few fire and rescue officials from across the country who said putting stickers on windows alerting fire fighters to a child’s room are not helpful and actually a bad idea, so I have since deleted that detail from this post. The most important thing all families can do, according to them, is having working detectors and most importantly, have a plan in place of how to get out of the house)

Taking these steps could save your life, but it will certainly make the job of all of these courageous fire fighters–career and volunteers–who enter these burning buildings a lot easier.