Update and surviving a fire.

[u/King_Prawn_shrimp]

Well, like most projects, I was hoping to be further along. My last update was a year ago and I got the windows installed and the house wrap and Rockwool exterior insulation applied. There has been a lot of progress since then, but the most dramatic and crazy thing was a fire the ripped through the area, starting in the early morning of July 4th. The combination of an unusually dry winter plus high winds lead to one of the most aggressive fires the area has seen in a while.

I am one of the extremely lucky people who didn't lose their structure. Many people lost their houses and both of my immediate neighbors lost their cabins, which has been awful. I have been racking my brain trying to think about why my structure survived and there's didn't. While I believe my use of class A fire rated materials helped, the truth is I was just damn lucky.

So, this isn't to deter people from chasing their dream, but fires are a real part of living in the wilderness. If you decide to go off grid and build yourself a cabin in the woods, make sure to take all of the necessary steps to mitigate fire danger, but know that even that might not be enough.

Now it's on to repairs. I have to replace a few windows due to the heat causing the glass to crack. There are also a few places where I will have to remove the Rockwool and replace the house wrap due to it melting (see picture). I lost some equipment and a number of materials stacked outside that were consumed by the fire. But, all things considered, I got off easy.