Mostly, Louise Lipe remembers the shock.
She was 12 years old, living in Minnesota, when her mother woke her up at 2 a.m. on the day after Christmas. Her eyes opened to a house full of smoke.
The fire, started by heating tape used to keep the pipes from freezing, burned her home to ashes. Her friend, who had been sleeping over, died in the blaze.
In the aftermath, the community came together and helped Lipe and her family — both with their material needs and with the emotional healing.
“We were displaced. As much support as we had, we were still displaced,” she said. “I definitely have only survived through strength and prayers.”
But three years later, disaster struck again.
A halogen bulb exploded, resulting in a fire that engulfed the family’s living room.
“I was in shock because I couldn’t believe it was happening again,” she said.
Lipe is 34 years old now and lives in Battle Ground. When she graduated from nursing school in March, she found she had more time on her hands and looked into volunteer opportunities.
The American Red Cross, she said, was a perfect fit.
“I want to take care of people, help people, make people all better,” she said. “Even if I can just be there with someone who’s going through the initial shock of losing something … I know exactly what they’re going through. I want to be there to be a presence.”
This weekend, Lipe is working her first campaign — the Home Fire Campaign, which deploys volunteers in Vancouver’s Rose Village neighborhood to install free smoke alarms in homes that need them.
The event will last from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, but volunteers also will travel throughout Vancouver for installation appointments throughout the day. To make an appointment, call the Red Cross at 503-528-5783 or visit www.redcross.org/cascadeshfpc.
Lipe said that she’s looking forward to the event because prevention is another way to help people.
“With fires, it’s so easy to be complacent. The fire alarm battery goes dead, starts beeping, so you take the battery out and let it hang there or you buy a house or are renting a house with no fire alarm,” she said. “It’s easy to forget how a simple little device is so critical.”
House fires, she said, are more common than people think. The Red Cross Cascades region responds to an average of two house fires every day.
“If it can happen to me twice, it can happen to anybody,” Lipe said. “Don’t get lazy. It’s free — there’s just no excuse.”
