not being able to use the phone when there is a fire

@meganreafer  I've moved your post to the Sims 4 game info section.

@meganreafer, I'm really sorry this has happened in your game.😮  Usually fires in TS4 aren't' quite that difficult to put out, but it seems as if you have a perfect storm of things going on that is pretty rare. 😞  

Since usually when you visit a neighbors house, you can't go inside until they let you in, it seems as if they were in the process of doing this when the fire started! You can't extinguish it because you don't have permission in their house, and they won't extinguish it (I think I remember occasionally having a Sim I played put out a fire autonomously, but I think they either had the Confident mood at the time, or perhaps it was one of their traits (either Self-Assured or Ambitious) .  But even if you could use your phone, it wouldn't do any good without firefighters in the game.  🤭 

The real problem is that you Sim is stuck on the lot due to travel not being allowed during a fire. (I think this was put in the game to prevent people not dealing with the fire, with the assumption that it would either be on your home lot, or if you were out at a bar, restaurant, etc, then you would have access to the fire to put it out. 🤔

The only thing I can think to do is to quit your game without saving (unless it is too late and you have already saved it).  If you quit while not saving, when you play that Save Game again, it will just revert to the point of your last save.  Hopefully you won't have lost too much progress! 🤞  If there is another way to solve your problem I am not aware of it at this time, as your exact situation is a bit unique. If I hear anything else that might help, I will let you know! 

Best of luck ! 🙂

It’s 2022 and this was thee most frustrating thing EVER. I took my sim & his son to Glimmerbrook to learn about/try to become vampires. I was chatting with the dudes outside the lot and (I’m a noob just started playing TS4 like 4 days ago) didn’t realize you needed to be invited in first. So when a fire broke out it took TWO DAYS of sims time for me to be able to finally leave because the fire took out all the furniture on their first level floor. I couldn’t extinguish it because I had not yet been invited inside, stupidly, I couldn’t even use my phone to call the fire dept because “THERE IS A FIRE” error message kept flashing anytime I click anything. And lastly the only other option is to click on the fire and select “call fire department” but my sim runs over there only to shrug at the fact that he couldn’t get inside (I guess to physically be right next to the fire to be able to call) so I had to let my sim and his toddler son poop and pee all over themselves, fall over and cry themselves to sleep and just basically freak out because I hadn’t saved in the 3 hours since I started playing today… 

EA, you should most definitely fix this feature. At least give the option to call the fire dept or leave. I was so scared I’d have to exit without saving which would mean my toddler would go back to being a newborn and my other kid back to being a toddler, we had just celebrated Xmas and New Years… so thankfully after about 10 minutes or so IRL, the fires went out and I was finally able to go home with my son smelly and upset. As soon as I got home I got messages about feeding the poor lad before he got taken away from me. Pinche EA. Fix this it has been SEVEN YEARS since this game came out! 🔥 🔥 🔥 

Just experienced weird design when fire broke out in NPC home some days ago. I traveled to one NPC home at Mt. Komorebi and walked outside far away to join the festival at public area. Later, an alert message said fire broke out. Nothing was happening at the festival. Then, I realized the fire broke out in a far away NPC home.

NPCs escaped their home and no one was going to put off the fire. Waited many minutes but fire fighter didn't arrive. The fire kept burning and not letting me to leave the scene. It just made me to load an early save and discard all my effort during the festival.

I think I found a solution for this problem! The exact thing that has been described in this thread happened to me just now. My sim went to a lot, didn't get a chance to knock at the door, a fire started and my sim couldn't call the firefighters or do literally anything except freaking out.

By using the cheat "fire.toggle false" new fires couldn't start and my sim was finally able to go home after the fires went out.

I had this problem to at a rental building it wouldn’t let me call or put out. I used the cheatto reset object then it let me call the fire department and they turned up.