"Get out of the building! There's a fire next door!" Greeted me upon answering the earth shattering pounding at my door at O Dark Thirty this morning.
"I've got to put something on," I sheepishly pleaded in my underwear and socks, with my ragged work shirt in my hand -- as it was the first scrap of clothing I grabbed jumping out of bed to answer said pounding -- though it never made it on my body.
The heavy knock upon the door in the middle of the night is never a good sign, and when one's eyes open and the walls are reflected emergency vehicle rotating lights parked right outside of one's window -- there's only so much time to discern what NEEDS to get done.
And so I grabbed the work shirt and flicked the hall light switch. When that failed to light, I flipped the stairway light and realized the electricity was cut for the first responders. Dash down the stairs to the first sentence of this entry.
"Okay but make it quick," the fireman allowed and made sure I was exiting the building before moving to the next unit.
"Fire next door" to me means the adjoining condo in my building. Fortunately for me, that wasn't the case. It was in fact, the neighboring building. Next concern, make sure the people I know from that building have made it out. They have.
Next concern, how will my own building fare in this disaster? Again fortunately the wind is carrying embers away from the buildings and over the parking lot. How big is the blaze? Sadly, when I looked, my suspicions were concerned and it's burning inside of two units. Then the roof collapses. Hope is beginning to flee.
The water lines become active and a ladder truck from the next town over arrives to assist the one on scene. Whatever the flames didn't get the water has. The eaves begin sagging and the crowd of evacuees is pushed back further from the blaze.
The conflagration is angry but the firefighters are aggressive and they beat the fire down until it's only spotty smoldering. A safety check to make sure the residences closest to the fire are habitable and everyone in the neighboring buildings are allowed to go back inside. There's no official preliminary cause yet and following the building inspector's examination, the structure may need to be razed.
What a way to start the morning. My own adrenaline finally abated seven hours later while at work (which I called in late for because I was blocked in by fire apparatus). The blaze was lead story on many broadcast stations, including the morning radio show I listen to on the local rock radio station. This rock station occasionally plays a sounder about a renegade crustacean which goes "Everybody get out of here there's a lobster loose" etc. etc. (it's a soundbite from somewhere).
Well, I can fight a lobster if I had to save my home, but if I had to fight a fire, the flames would win.
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