She got home, opened the door and a cloud of thick black smoke toppled over her. Through the darkness she saw the afterglow of parts of the house.

Of her Christmas tree, only the charcloaled stem is left. The black spear stands like a beacon, reaching up to the ceiling in the eye of the brief storm that raged in the appartment.

The Christmas torch burned fiercely and in one sweep it used up the oxygen in the well insulated home. Many objects have melted down and in lots of places things were smouldering but the fire, running around the house along the ceiling, had been unable to find fresh air. The wallpaper along the ceilings is burned in all the rooms and there's a thick layer of soot everywhere.

It was such a beautiful house, with thousands of special artifacts. Nearly everything is lost. Burned, frizzled up or scorched beyond recognition. Whoever enters the place to try and save something, comes out pitch black, every fibre and pore stinking of burned newspaper.