Christmas Fire! at our house

You may be wondering why I'm up at 4:00am.  we had a bit of a fire tonight at the house.  Sally woke up coughing, because of the flu, and her medicine she had gotten  on Friday.  and as we sat there in bed , I smelled something burning.  It was faint, like hot plastic.  I got up, went down stairs, and I saw a glow on the side porch next to the outside door from the living room.  I look at, and our screen porch is on fire.  catching fire.  I called in racing for a fire extinguisher yelling to grab buckets and water.  I knew it was fire on wood, and that in seconds it would over take the whole side porch and once that happened, it would be out of control.  the water helped but it was not enough.  I had thank god forgot to bring in one of the outside hoses for winter.  it was of course crappy, frozen and a pain in my ass.  In my bare feet  (not paws) , i ran around to turn on the hose, but the valve was closed from the basement, so as everyone kept pouring water, i got the hose working just in time.  The fire had reached the foor and had started to burn inside the space between the roof and shingles.  Keep in mind, it's dark, no time for lights, we are all in our bare feet, in 25 degrees spraying water on everything.  The steam was coming off everything and it was hard to tell what was smoke and steam.

After the last bit i could see was out, i got some lights to survey the damage.  I have a huge repair ahead of me before winter sets in, and it's December 20th, something......

That was close.  I have no idea how it started, it's odd.  I am dreading people seeing the house as the sun comes up and the questions that will be coming of which i have no answers.

merry merry :)  at least we all were not hurt.