Logo Early Ford V-8 Club of America
Golden Gate Charter
Regional Group #1

National

Kent Keyser Garage Fire

Dear friends,

Wanted to let you all know we had a small disaster here at the Keyser place in the early morning hours on Wednesday the 7th. Everyone's okay.  No one was hurt and the damage to my pride-and-joys can be fixed. Luckily the Phaeton was not in the garage when this happened (it's up at Kenny Walker's place getting a new sprucing up on paint!). I actually consider myself quite fortunate when I think of all the really bad things that could have happened. The 3:00AM wake-up call from our security service telling me they're getting a fire alarm signal. I thought it was our house and quickly did the walk-through finding everything okay. Then looking out the window to see the flames inside my detached garage. Oh what a sick feeling to see that. The run out to the "shop" in the dark, losing my shoes along the way (!), only to find my garage doors will not open because the circuit breakers had tripped and disconnected power. The fireman can only attribute an  "adrenaline rush" to explain how I was able to rip the roll-up garage door off it's hinges enough to crawl in with my garden hose and see two of my "baby's" burning... the '11 Model T and the Mustang. The flames were climbing up the wall from a workbench area to the high ceilings catching the roof insulation on fire and raining burning insulation down on everything.
I was able to get the fires out on the two cars before focusing on the wall and ceiling.

Geez, where's the fire department?  

Then the Model T caught fire again, I put that fire out, with the wall still burning.   Arghhh ... where's the fire department??  

Finally got all the fires out.  I waited, afraid to leave and go wake up my wife who was still asleep in the house (she wears great ear plugs at night!) for fear something would reignite. At last, I hear the fire truck ... no sirens thank goodness... don't want to disturb the neighbors. The Captain wanted to recruit me as a volunteer saying what a great job I did putting the fire out!  

In the end I was thankful I did not lose everything. Thankful for having ADT as an alarm service. Without their wake-up call we never would have known there was a problem until everything was lost. Thankful the cars were not totally destroyed. Damaged? Oh yes. Repairable? Yes.  Thankful one of the cars did not explode while I was in the garage with the hose. Not sure I'd be typing this essay to you all ... Hopefully I'll be seeing you in the Phaeton soon!

Happy New Year,

Kent Keyser

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