Thursday
It would be nice if I would post all these into their own entries, wouldn't it? LOL, I keep forgetting when I get home from work.
Anyway, last night. Sleeping away. Ear plugs in, box fan running - helps me sleep at night. Something woke me up. I turned on the bed lamp. Dogs were alerted, but they weren't growling. I didn't hear anything else, so, I turned the light off, put my earplugs back and was going to go back to sleep.....when......
I heard a noise at my bedroom door. I get up - it's Lynnette, rather excited, telling me the next door neighbor's house is on fire. I put on socks and shorts and went out there to see flames leaping out of the roof of the structure, smoke billowing.
I was immediately taken back to when MY house burned down on July 15, 2007. Funny how you can remember things like that with such clarity. 110 degree day, clothing that was on me? The ONLY clothing I had left.
Anyway, the fire department wasn't there yet, but Mark was OVER there, on the other side of the wall, with my garden hose, spraying water at the roof. The amount of heat and flames coming out of that roof made it quite obvious that that fire was laughing at a garden hose, no only that, but he was standing too close to the structure. The fire department would be there within minutes - or less.
Hey man, that hose isn't doing anything. Not only that, but that house is a total loss, just get out of there. This neighbor - like all of them - has junk laying everywhere. You can't just walk in and out of the back yard, you have to climb over things to get in and out of there, which is why I strongly suggested HE get away from the house and OUT of his back yard. If all that junk goes up, he's going to be in for some problems.
The only fortunate thing about this scenario is that the owner is in Las Vegas. He was not home at the time. IN fact, I doubt he came home. What's to come home to? Okay, I would be heading out on the road right away if I received such news, but that's me.
Well, I ran and got my camera and started videoing it. One fire truck arrives. They scramble. Their air tanks were on as well as the rest of their gear in a flash, had the adapter hooked up to the hydrant in a flash, were already tearing out chunks on the roof - in a flash. Broke out all the windows. Another fire truck, then another, then another, then the fire chief, police, ambulance, all kinds of equipment showed up.
It would be nice if I would post all these into their own entries, wouldn't it? LOL, I keep forgetting when I get home from work.
Anyway, last night. Sleeping away. Ear plugs in, box fan running - helps me sleep at night. Something woke me up. I turned on the bed lamp. Dogs were alerted, but they weren't growling. I didn't hear anything else, so, I turned the light off, put my earplugs back and was going to go back to sleep.....when......
I heard a noise at my bedroom door. I get up - it's Lynnette, rather excited, telling me the next door neighbor's house is on fire. I put on socks and shorts and went out there to see flames leaping out of the roof of the structure, smoke billowing.
I was immediately taken back to when MY house burned down on July 15, 2007. Funny how you can remember things like that with such clarity. 110 degree day, clothing that was on me? The ONLY clothing I had left.
Anyway, the fire department wasn't there yet, but Mark was OVER there, on the other side of the wall, with my garden hose, spraying water at the roof. The amount of heat and flames coming out of that roof made it quite obvious that that fire was laughing at a garden hose, no only that, but he was standing too close to the structure. The fire department would be there within minutes - or less.
Hey man, that hose isn't doing anything. Not only that, but that house is a total loss, just get out of there. This neighbor - like all of them - has junk laying everywhere. You can't just walk in and out of the back yard, you have to climb over things to get in and out of there, which is why I strongly suggested HE get away from the house and OUT of his back yard. If all that junk goes up, he's going to be in for some problems.
The only fortunate thing about this scenario is that the owner is in Las Vegas. He was not home at the time. IN fact, I doubt he came home. What's to come home to? Okay, I would be heading out on the road right away if I received such news, but that's me.
Well, I ran and got my camera and started videoing it. One fire truck arrives. They scramble. Their air tanks were on as well as the rest of their gear in a flash, had the adapter hooked up to the hydrant in a flash, were already tearing out chunks on the roof - in a flash. Broke out all the windows. Another fire truck, then another, then another, then the fire chief, police, ambulance, all kinds of equipment showed up.
One of those fire trucks parked right in front of my house. They ran a hose all the way down to the end of the street to the next nearest hydrant, the one the first truck was using is across the street. These guys have their stuff down, that's a fact. No messing around, no games, they were all rushing and running around.
Well, the wind was changing directions. Black, thick smoke started to replace the less thick stuff and I got a whiff of it. That's when I realized I had left the sliding glass door open in the excitement of the moment and some of that black nastiness was going directly into my house. Well, I rushed over there, shut the door and stayed inside until that stuff started blowing the other way.
Yes, my house smelled like smoke this morning when I came out of my bedroom, but, it isn't bad. Just open the windows this afternoon and that should air it out.
Back outside and of course the entire neighborhood was out at that point, watching the show. Took those firefighters a while to put that one out. Single-wide, old mobile home. Once they catch on fire, it's over. The fire department could be there in 2 minutes and that house would be done.
One of the tenants comes walking down the street - they wouldn't let her drive to my driveway. I have read that you are not allowed to run over those fire hoses, if you do, it can mess up the pumps in the trucks. So, the police just shut the street down.
I stood out there for quite a while watching all of this when it dawned on me how cold it was. Yes, dumb-dumb, that's because you (me, talking to myself) don't have anything on but shorts and socks in 49 degree temperatures. Oh well.
Of course, that kept me up for a while. I am not going to just try and sleep while a house next to me is on fire. Screw that. I'm making sure my house doesn't go up along with it and if it does, I'm not INSIDE of it, me, the tenants, dogs, etcetera.
This will be a good time to send a message to the tenants: get renter's insurance. If you have anything worth anything, get the insurance because if something like that happened to my house, your personal belongings would NOT be covered.
Well, work day is here, I'm freaking tired - result of being awakened and staying up too long - this may end up being a rather LONG day today.
ben
Well, the wind was changing directions. Black, thick smoke started to replace the less thick stuff and I got a whiff of it. That's when I realized I had left the sliding glass door open in the excitement of the moment and some of that black nastiness was going directly into my house. Well, I rushed over there, shut the door and stayed inside until that stuff started blowing the other way.
Yes, my house smelled like smoke this morning when I came out of my bedroom, but, it isn't bad. Just open the windows this afternoon and that should air it out.
Back outside and of course the entire neighborhood was out at that point, watching the show. Took those firefighters a while to put that one out. Single-wide, old mobile home. Once they catch on fire, it's over. The fire department could be there in 2 minutes and that house would be done.
One of the tenants comes walking down the street - they wouldn't let her drive to my driveway. I have read that you are not allowed to run over those fire hoses, if you do, it can mess up the pumps in the trucks. So, the police just shut the street down.
I stood out there for quite a while watching all of this when it dawned on me how cold it was. Yes, dumb-dumb, that's because you (me, talking to myself) don't have anything on but shorts and socks in 49 degree temperatures. Oh well.
Of course, that kept me up for a while. I am not going to just try and sleep while a house next to me is on fire. Screw that. I'm making sure my house doesn't go up along with it and if it does, I'm not INSIDE of it, me, the tenants, dogs, etcetera.
This will be a good time to send a message to the tenants: get renter's insurance. If you have anything worth anything, get the insurance because if something like that happened to my house, your personal belongings would NOT be covered.
Well, work day is here, I'm freaking tired - result of being awakened and staying up too long - this may end up being a rather LONG day today.
ben
2 comments:
so glad it didn't catch on your house. I know what your devastation was like way back then.
Funny, on Thursday I was thinking about the nativity set I had sent you and how it had survived the fire back then, only to be trashed by your stupid landlord at your temp place.
Hi Dorrie:
Fortunately, the fire department is like 2 blocks away from my house. They were there in a hurry. The rest of the engines showed up in phases, but first truck there at least got any potential for it to spread controlled quickly.
That landlord took that nativity set and what was left of sentimental value stuff that I had managed to salvage from the fire. It is one of the few times in my adult life that I had had thoughts of hurting someone. Taking a tenant's things - a tenant current on his rent - and throwing it in the trash without even bothering to inform that tenant that they were even going to enter the unit, much less throw everything away? Yes, I had some violent thoughts enter my mind at the time.
ben
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