fire!

A story for your reading pleasure:

I was just about to down the rest of my 1% milk after finishing an oh-so-healthy dinner of mac n' cheese (extra cheesy) when the blaring sound of the fire alarm interupted me. I looked up at my husband and he looked at me and we both shrugged it off as a false alarm (after telling this to Kirsten she smiled and said "And that's why people die in fires." True enough). Then we heard the sound of footsteps and yelling so we peeked outside and saw people running out the back door. Jamie asked if there really was a fire and a man said "Yes, it's in my apartment!"
The moment of truth came upon us.
What would we take with us?
We both put on our jackets and shoes and Jamie mentionned that he wanted to take our tv with him. I said no dice.
So we walked out the back door and looked up to the third floor (our apartment is on the first/bottom floor). We could see a glow of amber from the blazes coming through the kitchen window. Black smoke was seeping out of the first window and one of our neighbours was standing in her pajamas holding a baby talking to a 911 operator.
And now I must say that I have the utmost respect and admiration for (as Jamie says) our city's finest (aka our firefighters). Within 5 minutes of that phone call there were 3 fire trucks, 2 ambulances, 1 pick up truck with flashing lights (I'm not entirely sure what it was) and a cop car! Mercy!
Those brave dudes tromped upstairs and put out that fire. By this time, all 4 windows of that apartment were black and even more smoke was seeping out. The firefighters opened the balconey door and windows of the bedrooms and black smoke just billowed out. It was quite amazing. For a moment...I felt a wave of fear and sorrow. I'm not sure why...I think it was because I felt compassion for the man and all his belongings
One little girl was scared - or so I thought. Turns out she was crying because she thought all her books would get burned up. Hoorah for education.
All in all, our apartment was fine (and so was our cat - we actually didn't go back in to get him...is that bad?) but I have no idea about the apartment with the fire. I assume it was pretty bad.
So that was my little bit of entertainment for the evening/week.
Some thoughts:
- I should definitely consider getting renters insurance
- I liked that I got to meet some of my neighbours. What a way to bring the community together.
- I think being a firefighter would be scary. Full of risks, the unknown and dangerous situations.
- Despit not taking any material possessions with me, I would have been really sad if my things had been damaged/destroyed.
- I like having a "story" to tell.

I tried to post pictures but blogger isn't co-operating, so I will try and update this post again maybe tomorrow with pictures.