Robert Dunn Fire
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Guns and Gunsmiths contributor, GCA Member, AGI Graduate and AGI videographer Robert Dunn recently lost his house and all of his possessions including most of his firearms and his musical instrument collection to a devastating fire.
He also lost all of his gunsmithing tools which are the source of his livelihood. This fund is to help him get back on his feet.
Here is Robert's story:
My Guns Are Gone!
By: Robert Dunn
Anyone who knows me, knows that I treat my firearms like family members. If you wanted to really hurt me or you wanted to be hurt yourself, take or destroy my guns. Last night, almost all of my guns, ammunition and reloading equipment was destroyed in a fire. The sun was just setting for the evening and I was in my office/studio working online trying to answer some questions on the American Gunsmithing Institute’s Ask the Pros Forum. I took a short break to call my friend and mentor Bob Dunlap, as I was supposed to meet up with him in the morning and I wanted to confirm the time we were going to get together. Bob had just acquired a “Leatherneck” .22 rifle that I had found some magazines for and I wanted to take some photos of the rifle to write a new article for GunTech. As usual, our topics of conversation moved from guns to cars to politics to ammunition to gunsmithing quite swiftly. I had literally just finished telling Bob that I had finally cleared enough space in the old school house to be able to set up my lathe, drill press and belt sanders so that I would not be in danger of setting anything on fire! Within 30 seconds of me saying that, my neighbor started pounding on our door screaming that the school house was on fire! My neighbor had luckily arrived at his pasture to feed and water his horses, noticed the smoke and had already called 911. As luck would have it, he is also a volunteer fireman.
The school house that I am speaking of is located on the property where I live with my girlfriend, Rachel. The school house was built in 1923 and I would guess that much of the wiring was just as old. Apparently, the fire was started at an electrical outlet, which is a couple of feet away from where I stored all of the guns and ammunition that I was not currently using for carry, home defense and hunting. Actually about 95% of everything that I owned including reloading equipment and gunsmithing tools was stored over there!
I grabbed my keys and a fire extinguisher and sprinted to the school house to assess the situation. By this time, the fire was festering and the door was very hot to the touch. I backed off immediately and waited for the fire department to arrive because opening the door would have caused a rush of oxygen that would most certainly have caused a back draft and probably taken my life.
I live in a rural area and our water supply had run dry two months before (an entirely different and unfortunate story). When our volunteer fire department showed up, they ran out of water within the first ten minutes. By this time the fire was beginning to become really angry and lash out through any opening it could find. My ammunition promptly began to cook off. For the record, when the fire chief first showed up, I immediately told him that I had many thousands of rounds of ammunition and a lot of propellant in the burning structure. The firemen in these parts have come to expect that as the norm because we have a lot of hunters and gun friendly folks in our neighborhoods.
As the tin roof began to buckle, parts of the walls began to fall. This promptly lit our horribly dry front yard ablaze and the fire began to spread like an ocean wave breaking on a sun dried beach. One of our smaller trees turned into a flaming tornado! With no water left, everyone began stomping on the flames in an attempt to control it. Finally the cavalry arrived, which consisted of four other water trucks from nearby districts, the forestry service truck and some smaller rigs. The fire was prevented from spreading to our vehicles or torching any more of the trees!
At this point, I had resigned to the fact that 95% of all of my belongings had been completely destroyed. The heroes of this story and countless others like it are the firemen and women that battled the fire until it was “under control”. I have survived and helped to put out other fires throughout my life and I knew best to stay far back and let them do their jobs without them having to worry about me getting in the way.
The entire school house, all of Rachel’s family heirlooms, treasured possessions, family photos, memorabilia, our entire stock of freeze dried food (enough to last the two of us three meals a day plus snacks for well our a year), all of my musical instruments, original music (on DAT, cassette and CD) and orchestral music scores I had written since the sixth grade through my adult music career was all just a memory!
Here is the bottom line…Rachel, the cats and dogs and myself are okay. That is truly what is important! I have meat in the freezer and beer in the fridge! I still have some firearms and enough ammunition to get by for now. These guns are the ones that I use the most and I love them. I had previously brought a few of my family heirloom guns over to the safe in our little house that we actually live in, so I am thankful that they were saved. I am overwhelmed with joy that a mere few of days before the fire, I took the time to dig out my favorite gun in my collection from the school house, my Dad’s Browning Auto 5! I was writing yet another article and this one was about a Gunsmith’s Christmas. Even though I had taken enough photos for the article, I really wanted to get a photograph of the A5 because my Mom gave it to my Dad for Christmas. I am so glad I made the extra effort and my family heirloom was preserved.
Okay, back to the fire. The school house and all of our stuff burned to the ground. When the walls caved in, my ammo continued to cook off at an alarming pace. At first, it sounded like Jiffy Pop popcorn cooking at its final stage and then it was like an old western gunfight. Burst cases and bullets popped and whizzed out from the fire. You could see and hear projectiles bouncing and ricocheting in all directions and pinging off of the tin roof of the garage and little house. It was quite a scene. Finally, the fire died down and toxic smoke filled our valley. With a final hosing down after several hours of firefighting, all of the fire trucks and rigs drove away. No one spoke to us about the aftermath or anything, they just left. Rachel and I shrugged our shoulders and went inside our little house to try and digest all that had just happened. Sitting by a window and watching the smoldering ashes, we both knew what was going to happen because we burn our burn pile every year. Sure enough there was a huge flair up! By this time, the electric company had shut down the power on our property, so we could not use our land line and we do not get any cell phone reception in our neck of the woods! So, I drive for miles through the fog and smoke with little visibility towards a nearby cellular “Hot Spot”. Two deer almost hit me (Tip! we never hit deer, they hit us) before arriving at the Hot Spot that was not even warm. With no signal, I headed to a neighbor’s house and dialed 911 to get some guidance on what to do with the fire. A small crew showed up and they hosed the fire back down and used chainsaws to sculpt the burn. They told me to keep an eye on things and treat it like a huge burn pile. After they left again, I was not comfortable in the least. My ammunition continued to cook off fairly consistently, like a fire fight that has dragged on late into the night and early morning. I was wearing shooting glasses and a thick jacket until the sun came up and the fire chief showed up to hose the fire down again. The next day I heard that our neighbors said that it sounded like a battle was going on throughout the night!
Well, that is my tale of woe. As I am finishing the writing of this article, the rubble is still burning and smoldering and it will do so for at least the next few days. I am thankful that our neighbors were not affected too badly and that the fire did not spread to our vehicles and the mountainside or worse! We still have food, the little house is still standing and I have enough fire power to hunt and protect ourselves. I will still mourn my dead firearms and I am far from being happy about what has occurred, but life goes on and my list of firearms that I want is as long as it was when I was five years old!
Thanks to all of the firefighters throughout the country that risk their lives for their neighbors!
He also lost all of his gunsmithing tools which are the source of his livelihood. This fund is to help him get back on his feet.
Here is Robert's story:
My Guns Are Gone!
By: Robert Dunn
Anyone who knows me, knows that I treat my firearms like family members. If you wanted to really hurt me or you wanted to be hurt yourself, take or destroy my guns. Last night, almost all of my guns, ammunition and reloading equipment was destroyed in a fire. The sun was just setting for the evening and I was in my office/studio working online trying to answer some questions on the American Gunsmithing Institute’s Ask the Pros Forum. I took a short break to call my friend and mentor Bob Dunlap, as I was supposed to meet up with him in the morning and I wanted to confirm the time we were going to get together. Bob had just acquired a “Leatherneck” .22 rifle that I had found some magazines for and I wanted to take some photos of the rifle to write a new article for GunTech. As usual, our topics of conversation moved from guns to cars to politics to ammunition to gunsmithing quite swiftly. I had literally just finished telling Bob that I had finally cleared enough space in the old school house to be able to set up my lathe, drill press and belt sanders so that I would not be in danger of setting anything on fire! Within 30 seconds of me saying that, my neighbor started pounding on our door screaming that the school house was on fire! My neighbor had luckily arrived at his pasture to feed and water his horses, noticed the smoke and had already called 911. As luck would have it, he is also a volunteer fireman.
The school house that I am speaking of is located on the property where I live with my girlfriend, Rachel. The school house was built in 1923 and I would guess that much of the wiring was just as old. Apparently, the fire was started at an electrical outlet, which is a couple of feet away from where I stored all of the guns and ammunition that I was not currently using for carry, home defense and hunting. Actually about 95% of everything that I owned including reloading equipment and gunsmithing tools was stored over there!
I grabbed my keys and a fire extinguisher and sprinted to the school house to assess the situation. By this time, the fire was festering and the door was very hot to the touch. I backed off immediately and waited for the fire department to arrive because opening the door would have caused a rush of oxygen that would most certainly have caused a back draft and probably taken my life.
I live in a rural area and our water supply had run dry two months before (an entirely different and unfortunate story). When our volunteer fire department showed up, they ran out of water within the first ten minutes. By this time the fire was beginning to become really angry and lash out through any opening it could find. My ammunition promptly began to cook off. For the record, when the fire chief first showed up, I immediately told him that I had many thousands of rounds of ammunition and a lot of propellant in the burning structure. The firemen in these parts have come to expect that as the norm because we have a lot of hunters and gun friendly folks in our neighborhoods.
As the tin roof began to buckle, parts of the walls began to fall. This promptly lit our horribly dry front yard ablaze and the fire began to spread like an ocean wave breaking on a sun dried beach. One of our smaller trees turned into a flaming tornado! With no water left, everyone began stomping on the flames in an attempt to control it. Finally the cavalry arrived, which consisted of four other water trucks from nearby districts, the forestry service truck and some smaller rigs. The fire was prevented from spreading to our vehicles or torching any more of the trees!
At this point, I had resigned to the fact that 95% of all of my belongings had been completely destroyed. The heroes of this story and countless others like it are the firemen and women that battled the fire until it was “under control”. I have survived and helped to put out other fires throughout my life and I knew best to stay far back and let them do their jobs without them having to worry about me getting in the way.
The entire school house, all of Rachel’s family heirlooms, treasured possessions, family photos, memorabilia, our entire stock of freeze dried food (enough to last the two of us three meals a day plus snacks for well our a year), all of my musical instruments, original music (on DAT, cassette and CD) and orchestral music scores I had written since the sixth grade through my adult music career was all just a memory!
Here is the bottom line…Rachel, the cats and dogs and myself are okay. That is truly what is important! I have meat in the freezer and beer in the fridge! I still have some firearms and enough ammunition to get by for now. These guns are the ones that I use the most and I love them. I had previously brought a few of my family heirloom guns over to the safe in our little house that we actually live in, so I am thankful that they were saved. I am overwhelmed with joy that a mere few of days before the fire, I took the time to dig out my favorite gun in my collection from the school house, my Dad’s Browning Auto 5! I was writing yet another article and this one was about a Gunsmith’s Christmas. Even though I had taken enough photos for the article, I really wanted to get a photograph of the A5 because my Mom gave it to my Dad for Christmas. I am so glad I made the extra effort and my family heirloom was preserved.
Okay, back to the fire. The school house and all of our stuff burned to the ground. When the walls caved in, my ammo continued to cook off at an alarming pace. At first, it sounded like Jiffy Pop popcorn cooking at its final stage and then it was like an old western gunfight. Burst cases and bullets popped and whizzed out from the fire. You could see and hear projectiles bouncing and ricocheting in all directions and pinging off of the tin roof of the garage and little house. It was quite a scene. Finally, the fire died down and toxic smoke filled our valley. With a final hosing down after several hours of firefighting, all of the fire trucks and rigs drove away. No one spoke to us about the aftermath or anything, they just left. Rachel and I shrugged our shoulders and went inside our little house to try and digest all that had just happened. Sitting by a window and watching the smoldering ashes, we both knew what was going to happen because we burn our burn pile every year. Sure enough there was a huge flair up! By this time, the electric company had shut down the power on our property, so we could not use our land line and we do not get any cell phone reception in our neck of the woods! So, I drive for miles through the fog and smoke with little visibility towards a nearby cellular “Hot Spot”. Two deer almost hit me (Tip! we never hit deer, they hit us) before arriving at the Hot Spot that was not even warm. With no signal, I headed to a neighbor’s house and dialed 911 to get some guidance on what to do with the fire. A small crew showed up and they hosed the fire back down and used chainsaws to sculpt the burn. They told me to keep an eye on things and treat it like a huge burn pile. After they left again, I was not comfortable in the least. My ammunition continued to cook off fairly consistently, like a fire fight that has dragged on late into the night and early morning. I was wearing shooting glasses and a thick jacket until the sun came up and the fire chief showed up to hose the fire down again. The next day I heard that our neighbors said that it sounded like a battle was going on throughout the night!
Well, that is my tale of woe. As I am finishing the writing of this article, the rubble is still burning and smoldering and it will do so for at least the next few days. I am thankful that our neighbors were not affected too badly and that the fire did not spread to our vehicles and the mountainside or worse! We still have food, the little house is still standing and I have enough fire power to hunt and protect ourselves. I will still mourn my dead firearms and I am far from being happy about what has occurred, but life goes on and my list of firearms that I want is as long as it was when I was five years old!
Thanks to all of the firefighters throughout the country that risk their lives for their neighbors!
Organizer and beneficiary
Gary Howes
Organizer
Napa, CA
Robert Dunn
Beneficiary
