Recently Jill and I were recounting some of my adventures, or maybe I should say my misadventures! One of them that still makes her cringe is the “house afire” incident down in Lequire (south of Stigler).

I have a good friend down there, Kevin. He is a rancher and has another job, also. He had bought a piece of ground that he had leased out to a rock company to quarry rock (soap stone). It had to be cleared off, so they could bring in their equipment and begin digging for the rock. On the property was an old (and I do mean old) house that was going to need to come down. It had some excellent lumber that could be salvaged, and Kevin asked if I would be interested. “You bet!” I said. I salvaged what lumber I could salvage. Once the salvaged wood was removed and stored, that left us with the question of what would we do with the house? After much discussion, most not very serious, we decided we would just burn it down. “Ever burned a house down?” Kevin asked. “Can’t say that is on my list of accomplishments or even my bucket list. How about you?” “Nope, but how hard can it be?”

Hmmm…how hard can it be? Just need some accelerant (got diesel) and some matches. So, we went out to the property to get the job done. Kevin’s mom and dad came out also to watch (I think supervise, really). It was a cold and misty/rainy day, so it was perfect.

We climbed into the house via the back door on a couple of blocks as the porch had been long gone. There was a hole in the foundation where the kitchen was located. We climbed in and began our task like a couple of trained arsonists (well in our minds anyway). We started in the front room sloshing diesel on the floors, walls, windows and anything that looked like it would burn. We went from the front room to the bedrooms, bathroom and ended up in the kitchen.

When everything looked like it was “doused” enough, we went back to the front room and started striking matches to light the fire. We then moved back to the kitchen continuing to leave a trail of spent matches. But the fire was just not catching. So we moved back to the front room and poured some diesel in a spot and then lit it. This seemed to work, so we started back toward the kitchen repeating this process. We were standing in the living room making sure this was going to burn.

It was then that we noticed that the kitchen was starting to burn really well, as well as the room beside us. Might be time to leave, and we may need to hurry. The flames and smoke were now getting thick. We both started toward the kitchen door when it happened…yep, I just disappeared from the waist down!

I found a rotten spot in the floor and fell right through. A line from a Johnny Cash song started coming to my mind, “I went down, down, down, and the flames went higher!” I was laughing at it all, and Kevin was beginning to panic. Did I mention Kevin’s mom and dad were outside in their pickup? They said that they were even getting a little concerned as flames started coming out the side of the house and smoke was everywhere.

“I guess we should get out of here,” I said. But how? I remembered that there was a hole in the foundation, and I could crawl through there. I didn’t want to leave Kevin to be on his own, and he was not going to leave me. It was really starting to get a little warm, too. As I kept trying to heave myself out of the hole, more floor gave way. Finally, I got to a floor joist that was sturdy and pulled myself up with the help of a strong floor and Kevin.

Once free from the dungeon-of-death-hole in the floor, we booked it to the back door and ran outside to safety. Within five minutes of being out of the house, the house was totally engulfed in flames–just like a house afire! It was a close call and probably not the smartest thing Kevin and I had ever done (and was not the last, either).

As I look back on this event, it made me realize that if this is even a glimpse of what Hell is like, I want no part of it. My experience in the fire was brief but very impressionable. The heat of the flames, the smell of the smoke and fire consuming all it touched made me know this is no place I want to be again let alone for an eternity.

The Bible’s description of Hell is never glamorous, and we should do all we can to avoid it. I am glad I have a personal relationship with Jesus my Savior, and I am spared the eternal flames. How about you?

Not setting any fires, Bro. Tim