Not long afterward, as they began to rebuild their lives, the Sodders started to question all the official findings about the fire. They wondered why, if it had been caused by an electrical problem, the family's Christmas lights had remained on throughout the fire's early stages, when the power should have gone out. Then they found the ladder that had been missing from the side of the house on the night of the fire at the bottom of an embankment 75 feet (23 m) away.[6]