I don't know how many of you heard about Maria Couragee and her fire. Maria lost 28 of her rescued avian and animal friends in a horrific and heartbreaking fire last October. As it is her desire to use her personal tragedy to alert others about what could possibly happen to any of us, she has written a piece about Your Clothes Dryer: A Fire Hazard. Read and learn. I have to admit - we do massive laundry in our house with 5 boys and all the dogs, and in 13 years, I have never had the dryer cleaned. That is changing as of yesterday. I have scheduled an appointment. Please use her experience as a wake up call.

Randi, thank you for sharing this story and information on how we can prevent this from happening. Dryers typically have long lives and accumulation of lint can be a health and safety hazard that we don't think about.

It is so true! I never leave the house with the dryer on, just to be safe!

I've always been taught to never leave the house with the dryer on either. I have to admit though, I never knew you were supposed to clean it- other than cleaning the lent trap!

Yes, but the dryer wasn't on when Maria left the house. She had done the laundry the night before. The lint smoldered for more than 12 hours before it erupted into a fire. She was teaching class when she was notified. She went home and found all the little dead ones and collapsed to her knees. Tears come to my eyes to even write this.

my heart shattered into pieces when i read maria's story. i am terrified about fires now. i need to call the sears repairman to come clean out the drier, we are behind on it.

there was another person recently that suffered a similar tragedy to maria only it was from an overheated computer. she lost her hy of i think 16 years and a bunch of other birds. i don't know how i could live again after something like that.

The heartbreak some people can live through!

People have two choices. They either end their lives, or they continue to put one foot in front of the other. They just keep going, through pain, depression, and despair. Time is a healer, and I am convinced that the majority of us get whacked at one point with a tragedy of some sort, and how we move through it proves to be an alchemical process.

Maria has struggled mightily in the last months. I think it's especially wonderful the way she has reached out to share her experience, hoping that she may save some lives if people take these simple but necessary precautions. Her blog site is now listed on the web page.