A new home rises from the ashes

Brad and Beth McDouall made the front page of our newspaper before they even moved here. And not in a good way.

“I drove down the next day, and I couldn’t believe our house fire was on your front page,” Brad McDouall was saying Sunday.

“It was a slow news day,” I told him.

But very big news to Beth McDouall, who received a harrowing phone call at 6 a.m. on the morning of June 17, 2008, in Northern Virginia.

“The phone rang, she answered it, and she starting crying,” Brad McDouall recalled. “I didn’t know what in the world was the matter.”

The matter was, the McDoualls’ new house in the Wildwood section of Campbell County, the house they were getting ready to move into, was now a charred mess.

“It was a shock,” Brad McDouall recalled, “but then to see it firsthand … There was crime scene tape all over the place, and the whole second story was gone.”

Although the cause has never been precisely determined, it was probably not a coincidence that a fierce electrical storm swept through about the same time. The Brookville-Timberlake Volunteer Fire Department battled the blaze with the help of another volunteer company, despite the fact that the house was “fully involved,” as they say, when they arrived.

“They really tried to save it,” Beth McDouall said, “and we were very appreciative.”

Which is why the McDoualls had an open house at their rebuilt residence on Sunday and invited members of the fire company as well as their new neighbors.

“Only two firemen showed up,” Beth said toward the end of the afternoon affair, “but they were very nice, and they showed us pictures on the Internet of our fire while it was still going on.”

The McDoualls had insurance, fortunately, and so they started with all that was left of their previous house — the chimney.

“We sort of oriented the floor plan around that chimney,” Brad said.

In a way, the couple admitted, the fire was a backhanded blessing — at least, the timing of it.

“The previous house was sort of a fixer-upper,” Beth said, “and we were going to have to put a lot of work into it. It would have been so much worse if we’d done the work and then had that happen.”

The obvious good fortune is that the McDoualls and their two children and pets weren’t in the house that night. Whether it was instigated by lightning, or whether nearby lightning sparked some sort of electrical arcing, the fire spread quickly.

“Now, we have a new house,” Beth said, “but we’re trying to make it bigger than the insurance money would allow.”

A nurse by trade, Beth McDouall is still working in Northern Virginia and commuting. The family moved into their new house in April.

“The people in this neighborhood have been so supportive,” Beth said.

Indeed, several visitors offered Brad — who is taking a leave of absence from the heating and air conditioning business to finish enlarging the Wildwood house — help with the project.

There was enough food on hand to feed the entire subdivision, but most of the firemen were probably either on duty or enjoying a well-deserved Sunday off.

At least they know they’ve been thanked. That, sadly, is rare enough.