Fire

So, about 2:30 AM local time (I’ve long since switched to Pacific time, but that’s beside the point), I heard what sounded like paramedics outside my window. I noticed they sounded remarkably close, as in right outside my window, so I investigated and saw that, in fact, they were right outside my window. Only it wasn’t paramedics, but a fire truck, proving that I don’t know the difference in the sirens and also putting me into a small panic.

The first thing I thought was one of the two buildings the truck was positioned towards was on fire (one of which, by the way, I live in). So, I walked out the door and saw that, well, the other building wasn’t on fire. Shit. This caused me to fall into a bigger panic for a moment, however, further investigation showed that my building didn’t appear to be on fire either.

So, I then logically figured the fire was somewhere else and walked to the back porch, looked towards the small forest behind us, and found, as one might have guessed, the fire. It wasn’t exactly a relief. Basically, the entire thing was huge (or at least it looked so to me, I’ve never seen a fire like that before, who am I to gauge), and it was all of 10 feet from our actual apartment and about 5 feet from our porch. Of course, the firefighters were here by then, but they were still just positioning to put it out, and it’s not a very comforting thought seeing a huge fire burning unimpeded 5 feet from your home.

So, I knock on Spider’s door, and he groggily opens it only to be told there’s a fire outside. Naturally, he responds to this by closing his door and getting dressed. Which, granted the building wasn’t on fire, and the firefighters were here, but he didn’t know that. When questioned on it he explained he didn’t want to go outside in his underwear, which, really, is the sort of logic you can never argue with.

Anyway, we stayed up for a bit and watched them slowly put out the fire (while they were standing on our porch, really, it was that close). It gave us an opportunity to share stupid fire stories (such as how I thought the “Stop, Drop, and Roll” slogan meant that you were supposed to actually roll on the fire to put it out), and just made for an interesting atmosphere for a few hours. I may post pictures of the remnants of the fire later, although I presume it’ll look like a pathetically small deal if I do.

Oh, and as far as what started it, there’s no way of knowing, but best guess is someone tossed a cigarette butt into the woods. Anyway, it’s over now, and everyone’s ok, my only regret is that I couldn’t have seen it first and claimed hero status. But, alas, I’l

l settle for not having my apartment burned to the ground.