Adventures in Fireland
May. 17th, 2009 01:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rorqualWe were awoken this morning (late morning, but still morning!) by one of the neighbors banging on the door to say the house next door was on fire. Which it sure was, though the firetrucks were pulling in as we were leaving (five of them! Very impressive), so even at that point it seemed like everything would be under control pretty quickly. The firemen seemed chill, though I suppose they do this all the time - nevertheless, I found that even more reassuring as we watched them go into the house. I'm in a rowhouse (end unit); this was the attached house on my right, so though I was pretty sure my place wasn't going to be reduced to ash, there was a clear potential to do some damage to it. We and the ferrets had gone out the front, but it seemed like the action was in the back, so I scampered off (without shoes, as they were not on my Need To Get list as I left the house) among the firetrucks to see what was going on around back. I got stopped a couple of times by firemen, but when I told them I was next door and wanted to see what was up, they let me scamper on.
The back of the house was much more exciting. It looked like the fire started on the second floor, a room which in my layout is a small bedroom - the firemen had ripped out the whole window, and there were smoke-marks coming up out of the window towards the roof. When I got back there, the firemen were pulling down the gutter and wooden edging under the roof; I assume to make sure there was no combustion going on up there. The room must have gone up almost entirely - the firemen threw the remains of a box spring (just the springs), a badly burned door, and a lot of woodwork out the window, so I can't imagine there was much left in the room after the fire. (The helpful firemen knocked out all the windows on the second and third floors, too. When I asked if I could go back in my place, they said it was fine, but if I smelled smoke, to let them know and they could 'open some windows' for me. No thanks, firemen!)
Fortunately, all this was on the opposite side of the house from my place, the upshot being there was no damage, even cosmetic, to my place at all. There's a smell of smoke in the air, but no worse than if someone was having a barbecue (well, much less yummy), so I'm totally fine. The folks next door obviously have a lot of work to do, but the structural integrity of the place seems fine. For me, it was a drill for my Fire Emergency plan, which was pretty successful. I made it out of the house with: two ferrets (in the carrier, not a pillowcase), the laptop and iPhone (with chargers), my purse and wallet, and fully dressed - I thought that was pretty good. I left the car keys behind (mainly because I'd taken them upstairs in my rush, and put them down somewhere stupid), and had no shoes, but most importantly did not have any of my Critical Papers (deed, insurance info, etc). That can be fixed by buying a little fireproof box for them, which I will do asap. But really, though I would have hated to lose all my stuff, I would have been able to go day by day with what I had. Plus, really, all that matters is the ferrets.
What's your fire emergency plan? :)
The back of the house was much more exciting. It looked like the fire started on the second floor, a room which in my layout is a small bedroom - the firemen had ripped out the whole window, and there were smoke-marks coming up out of the window towards the roof. When I got back there, the firemen were pulling down the gutter and wooden edging under the roof; I assume to make sure there was no combustion going on up there. The room must have gone up almost entirely - the firemen threw the remains of a box spring (just the springs), a badly burned door, and a lot of woodwork out the window, so I can't imagine there was much left in the room after the fire. (The helpful firemen knocked out all the windows on the second and third floors, too. When I asked if I could go back in my place, they said it was fine, but if I smelled smoke, to let them know and they could 'open some windows' for me. No thanks, firemen!)
Fortunately, all this was on the opposite side of the house from my place, the upshot being there was no damage, even cosmetic, to my place at all. There's a smell of smoke in the air, but no worse than if someone was having a barbecue (well, much less yummy), so I'm totally fine. The folks next door obviously have a lot of work to do, but the structural integrity of the place seems fine. For me, it was a drill for my Fire Emergency plan, which was pretty successful. I made it out of the house with: two ferrets (in the carrier, not a pillowcase), the laptop and iPhone (with chargers), my purse and wallet, and fully dressed - I thought that was pretty good. I left the car keys behind (mainly because I'd taken them upstairs in my rush, and put them down somewhere stupid), and had no shoes, but most importantly did not have any of my Critical Papers (deed, insurance info, etc). That can be fixed by buying a little fireproof box for them, which I will do asap. But really, though I would have hated to lose all my stuff, I would have been able to go day by day with what I had. Plus, really, all that matters is the ferrets.
What's your fire emergency plan? :)
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