Thursday, December 7, 2006

Now that's a Fire!

Big doings in the neighborhood here yesterday. Around 7:30am, as my wife and I were getting ready to go to work (she downstairs and me upstairs with our son), I heard sirens. My thought was, "Oh, there's a fire somewhere." Next, I heard two explosions close by the building. We live in a condo building of about 20 units. The sound reminded me of a transformer or something similar tripping. But as the power was still on, I figured I would check outside.

Opening the front door, I was greeted by most of the fire trucks from the local area in front of my home. Suddenly, I realized, the fire must be here. Stepping outside, I immediately saw the three-story townhouse two doors down was ablaze. The home was fully engulfed and the roof had already partially collapsed.

The fire raged until it was declared "under control" about 9:00am. The townhome is a complete loss and the neighboring townhome was also significantly damaged. Our condo unit was damaged on the end facing the fire, as the siding warped under the intense heat.

The residents of the townhouse had emptied their fireplace ashes into a box under their deck, and the wind got to them and stirred them up. The explosions I heard were the propane tank on their gas grill and the gas meter blowing off the side of the house.

No one was hurt in the fire and that is the important thing. However, a lesson to all with fireplaces, dispose of them properly! You can read more about the fire here:

2 comments:

Anna van Schurman said...

Aye caramba. Glad you're all ok!

Anonymous said...

and how good were the firemen? any awesome EMT's? anyone shoving O2 up your nose and offering transport to the hospital????

my goodness, glad you are all okay! very scary