2024 03 06

Aftermath of a neighbors’ house fire. Chicago, Illinois. February, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

Everyone is safe, which is all that matters. The moments during the fire, which woke you up in the middle of the night, confused, smelling smoke in the air, seeing the lights and the hearing the muffled commotion out the window but unsure what was happening, are now seared into your brain. You step outside onto the back porch to try and gauge what is happening and see your neighbor rushing outside of his house. “Everyone is safe,” he yells up to you in a voice that doesn’t sound like his own.

It is no longer a home but a place transformed into somewhere that something happened. The first floor is dirty, wet and disheveled as if a college keg party had taken place during the night only to have the participants flee from any cleanup responsibilities. There are streaks of mud on the floors and walls showing the movements of people at a different time. Walking up the stairs, the space is transformed into something unrecognizable. The ceiling and roof are missing, revealing charred wooden beams and a view of the late afternoon sky above. Coldness fills the air giving a clear feeling of abandonment. The floor everywhere is spongey and wet with debris scattered throughout, making movement difficult and dangerous. You get the sensation that the floor may be structurally compromised from all the weight of things.

You then realize this is likely the last time you will be in this place and, unknowingly, your last visit to this home had already occurred without even knowing it. Something monotonous that was actually meaningful. Everything has changed in a moment. The structure will need to be demolished and replaced with something new; it will be made from modern materials and of a modern design; another old growth, hand crafted, century old home lost to time, never to return. New people will eventually fill the space, completing the transition into something fully unfamiliar and new. One spark from a busted furnace altering the course of lives.

It’s at this time you take to heart life’s fragile reality, rearrange your priorities a bit, and call your insurance broker to get some clarity on what your fire coverage is like in a worst-case scenario — the kind you previously never considered one day might happen to you.

-Clayton