In the words of Nevada Fire Chief Ray Reynolds, “Everyone believes fires happen to someone else. No one thinks for a minute a fire will occur in their home.”
But if you do experience the tragedy of a fire, it is most likely you’ll experience it in your home. And the question is, “Are you prepared?”
Reynolds has seen his share of home fires, and some have caused total destruction. “The reality is that home fires become the biggest life trauma for many people as they watch everything they’ve worked for go up in smoke.” But, he continued, “most people do not think about fires until they have one.”
Lacey and Garrett Johnson of Nevada lost their home and a beloved pet cat due to fire, and they are sharing their story in hopes of helping others.
It was April of 2020 when the Covid pandemic was just beginning that the
Johnson’s home at 905 C Avenue went up in smoke.
It was a Sunday, the first nice sunny day in a while, and the Johnsons were once again working on their total home remodel/renovation. “We’d just finished renovating the main area of the basement, and we had all the windows open to let in fresh air,” Lacey recalls. “We had removed all the old wood paneling and put it in a pile under the attached carport to keep it out of the rain while waiting for a construction dumpster to arrive the next day.”
They’d also been working on a bathroom that had a metal and glass shower door. “We leaned the glass door against the wood pile, careful not to shatter the glass,” Lacey said.
They needed to make a trip to one of the home-supply stores in Ames. “As we got to the back half of the store, my phone rang, showing ‘Nevada PD.’ I immediately answered. They questioned if anyone was at home or if we had pets in the house.”
Lacey told them of two pet cats. She asked if someone had broken in, or was there a fire. She got the answer ‘yes,’ and a few seconds later a dispatcher came on the line telling her the garage was on fire.
“We rushed to the front of the store and out to the car… Garrett got a call from our neighbor saying it wasn’t the detached garage, it was the attached carport. Our entire world seemed to stop at that moment.”
Getting back to their neighborhood, they saw their house surrounded by fire trucks and emergency vehicles. They parked as close as they could and ran to the house. “I just collapsed to my knees and screamed,” Lacey recalls. “The whole house was black and smoking, firemen were on the roof and inside. It was unreal.”
They hadn’t lived there long enough to know anyone very well in the neighborhood, but as you’d expect in Nevada, the neighbors gathered and consoled them.
Firefighters/EMS members were trying to resuscitate one cat, Nala, and trying to find the other cat, Paisley. They asked Lacey where the cat might be, and she responded “under furniture, often under the master bedroom bed.” They found Paisley and put her on a breathing machine, but soon they carried Nala to her, the cat wrapped in a towel. She didn’t make it. “My heart was shattered,” Lacey said. “She was my soulmate in animal form — endless love, snuggles, and someone to listen that was taken too soon. She was only 5.”
The house was a total loss. Despite the fact it was still sort of standing, everything in it was fire, smoke or water damaged.
Lacey remembers firefighters asking if there was anything sentimental they could try to get out. She had some quilts made by family and her wedding dress that she asked then to gather, and said one of the firemen also noticed and thoughtfully grabbed a wedding book and some musical instruments.
“Everything had to be thrown away,” Lacey said. Her husband was a collector of video gaming consoles and games. “It was really hard to lose it all,” he said. “Some were saved from childhood, given by family… they just can’t be replaced with the same feeling.”
In the immediate aftermath, the couple stayed with Garrett’s parents in Ames. “We ended up there for two weeks, until getting set up with an apartment through our insurance,” Lacey said.
They needed everything. She remembers going to stores and replacing personal hygiene items, buying clothes, getting phone charging cords, and getting a new laptop so she could work remotely again. The laptop, she said, was also very helpful for filling out insurance forms and doing research on what they needed to do.
They were both lucky to have some PTO time to use to have a few days to figure out insurance and map out their next steps.
When it came to insurance, Lacey said the hardest thing was listing all the losses. “The insurance company asked us to list every single thing, down to an ink pen, that we had in the house.” In addition to listing items, she said, she needed to give a quantity of each and list a comparable market item with a dollar value associated to it … a lot of work.
And one of the hardest things they dealt with in the aftermath was the investigation. “We felt so guilty,” she said, knowing it is thought that the shower door next to the wood caused the fire. “We hadn’t the faintest thought that the shower door would turn into a magnifying glass to set the whole thing ablaze.” It wasn’t anyone’s fault, as the report concluded, but it still sat heavily in their hearts.
The day the recovery company brought a dumpster to the property to clear out the house was also very hard for them. “We did not visit the house again until after it had been demolished down to the foundation,” she said.
They made the decision to rebuild a new home at the same location. “We realized how important our neighbors were to us and didn’t have any desire to leave Nevada. The community that stepped forward for us really had shown what an incredible town this was, and we wanted to keep roots here for many years.”
“People came to our aid when no one really knew us,” Lacey continued. And one man, she’s not sure who he was, came by the day of the fire as a calm presence, quietly putting his hand on their shoulders and asking if he could pray with them. “In that moment time and sound stopped. The prayer was peaceful and gave us light and hope in a dark moment.” He left them with a $100 Fareway gift card and disappeared quietly. They’ll never forget his kindness.
They moved into their newly constructed home in February of 2021, but Lacey said it was probably 2024 before they got their lives back to a feeling of “normal.”
If she could offer any advice to others, it would be to create an emergency plan that guides you on where to go and what to do in case of a fire, and have a savings account. Once a year, she said, take pictures of everything in your house — including the things in cupboards and drawers. “Those photos will be much easier to look at if needed than when everything is burned.”
Also, don’t be surprised if your insurance carrier drops you after a fire. It happens after a big claim. But when it comes to insurance, she advises investing in comprehensive insurance that offers open-peril protection for both the structure and personal property, often with replacement cost coverage.
And seek a therapist. “Talking to a licensed therapist is so important to help give you mental health support and guidance, which insurance may help you with.”
The couple both strongly advises everyone to think about all the “things” you buy. Are you buying something that adds value or gives you joy or is it just another thing that you don’t really need? “We see life differently now,” Garrett said. “We spend our free time and money on trips and concerts, making memories … living life to its fullest just feels different now.”
The Johnsons are always willing to talk to anyone who is going through the same thing. Reynolds appreciates their willingness to share their story.
“One thing that is not lost on me and has shaped my life is seeing people who experience tragedy,” Reynolds said. “There have been several fires involving fire fatalities where family members literally didn’t know where they were going to get their next meal. I recall a fire in southern Iowa on Thanksgiving several years back. The family in a rural setting lost their 17-year-old son in a house fire, while the rest of the family escaped and were sitting in the ambulance. The father asked me, ‘What do I do?’ I didn’t understand the question. He said, ‘I’ve lost my son, I don’t have a house, I don’t have clothes, I don’t know where my next meal is coming from, I don’t have enough money to bury my son, and I don’t know where to go.’
“I was driving home that day about to spend Thanksgiving with my family. All I could do was think about the tremendous loss that family had on a day that was usually meant to be together. That experience and many like it have helped me work to build a team that cares for people who suffer fires in Nevada. Our Support Operations Team cares for people as the fire is occurring. Our fire department chaplain spends considerable amount of time with people after a fire. We also have a support operations person who helps people pick up the pieces by applying for state assistance until their lives can resume. It is so important to be the example of kindness to people during tragedies.”
If you have a question about planning ahead for a fire or about how you can help others who are going through this, please reach out to the Nevada Fire Department or to the Johnsons.
An Important Note: Smoke alarms help notify occupants of a fire in the home, so make sure you have smoke alarms in all levels of the home, all bedrooms, and in all hallways. If you are building a new home, consider residential sprinklers. The time to add sprinklers is when a home is being built. While this adds an additional $1.75 to the per-square-foot cost of a home, most people spend the equivalent in countertops. At the end of the day, early notification makes a difference in keeping an emergency small and manageable.
–Written by Marlys Barker, City of Nevada