Fire Down the Street

The other night some of my friends, my wife, and I were preparing to go caving (spelunking), one of our favorite past-times. We had assembled all our gear. Flashlights and headlamps, grubby clothing (the caves around here have soft clay floors and often have creeks running through them), and some bottled water. We were all ready, in fact we were putting our gear in to the cars when one friend, David, noticed an annoying noise. “What the heck is that?” Looking around we realized that it was the fire alarm going off in the apartment two doors down from mine. Through the open window we could see a haze of smoke and an occasional flicker of a flame. Quickly I ran up the stairs to see if anyone was home. Michal called the emergency line for the complex (it simply sent her to a voicemail-box), David called 911. We evacuated the neighbors, letting them know that there was a fire (which none of them seemed to think was a really big deal). Within 5 minutes the first fire truck arrived, soon followed by 3 or 4 other vehicles including 2 full sized fire engines. After breaking down the door and dragging in the hose, the firemen discovered the source of the smoke and flame… a burning trash can in the kitchen. I talked to the guy who lives in that apartment a couple days later and found out that his friend had flicked a cigarette butt in the trash can right before they left to return to the friend's house. The scorch mark up the side of the kitchen wall reminded me of videos I have seen of trash-can fires quickly torching an entire room.

Caving was fun. We weren't able to get out of our parking spaces to go until all the fire trucks were out of the way… but it's best to trespass on private property in the dark any way!