We recently met with our contractor to level set. Two big updates came out of the meeting.

The move-in date is realistically August 2025, which is painful. Five more months of this limbo.

Perhaps most amazing is that he assures me that based on his opinion after seeing thousands of home fires and that of one of the fire inspectors, the third and final theory as to what started the fire is this:

The red line drawn on the left side of the back deck is representative of a wire UNDER the wood which I never knew of and which I doubt the home inspector would have been aware of. I did not even know there was a plug there. It’s on the opposite side of the electrical panel that I was aware of on the back deck. It was an extension cord that was plugged in apparently from years ago. It had live electricity. Over the years rodents may have very feasibly chewed on that wire. This does explain the extreme damage to the kitchen area where my refrigerator even melted, although there was certainly plenty of damage to go around. This also explains why some of the items on the opposite side of the deck (what I call “ground zero”) are actually NOT THAT DAMAGED. I have been able to repaint them and have them as decorations once again. I previously thought that was random.

This helps me to cope with that trauma. After the fire inspectors ruled out arson, the preliminary report 24 hours in called it an accident and electrical anomaly. That report thought it was the couch with a charger and extension cord that caused the fire. The previous “final” fire department report determined that it came from the back deck, but on the right side. Before the very first report the guilt and questioning were consuming me, not to mention the blame I had for others. There are still countless things that could have been done differently that day which would have yielded a very different outcome, but it’s not productive to run through those constantly.