House fire cremates AR-15, but the Aim point PRO red-dot sight survived

Paul Riddell lost nearly everything when his Minnesota home collapsed from a house fire. Fortunately all the members of his family escaped unharmed, but their home and material possessinos were completely destroyed.

Paul and his family were finally allowed to explore their former home a month after the fire. Among the charred remnants of his belongings Paul found what was left of his AR-15. “Here’s a picture of my AR after it was recovered from my house fire after being exposed to the elements for over a month,” Paul wrote when he shared the image above. “The rifle was at the core of the fire.”

In an interview with RECOIL, Paul said he learned the value of a quality fire-proof gun safe. “I lost both my rifles and my shotgun because I had all this money invested in the guns and was storing them in a sheetmetal locking StackOn cabinet.”

While the AR looked like a piece of burnt toast, the Aimpoint PRO survived relatively unharmed. The polymer rifle case had fused itself at various points along the AR-15 and Paul had to pry open the damaged eyepiece cover to get a look inside. When he turned the knob the red-dot lit up like nothing had happened.

“Had I been willing to trust firing the gun,” said Riddell, ” I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if it held zero.”

After Aimpoint learned about Paul’s story they exchanged his crispy PRO for a new optic and plan to display Paul’s surviving sight in their museum.