Fires are no joke!

[QCzar]

So I'm standing around in my apartment Sunday evening, blasting some music (well, not really blasting), when all of a sudden there's this loud banging on the door and people screaming in the hall. Not two seconds later, I quickly recognize the distinct smell of smoke and fire. We're talking from barely five minutes ago nothing, to the halls being filled with smoke.

Of course, the fire just had to be on our floor. I guess it must have been a 4 or 5 alarmer because by the time I got down the stairwell and stepped outside, there are like a dozen engines. They actually told most people (except my floor, of course, and a few others) to stay inside . What the eff?

Anyway, the fire itself wasn't huge. It turned out to be some kind of fire that was burning through the carpet and cabinets of a unit just two doors down. What the eff?! Had they waited just a couple more minutes, that unit would've been engulfed.

The fire itself wasn't spectacular, or anything, and it appears that no one got seriously hurt. But, well, it's my first real fire fire. And all that stuff they say about the smoke being the 10x worse part is absolutely true. Just a few feet of burning carper filled my entire floor with smoke.

Not a joke.

ETA: AH! I got promoted. Goodness, I've been a Captain for like half a decade. Oh well, I'll make Commodore in 2013.

 

[Plecostomus]

Glad you are ok. Lost most of my Star Trek Collection back in 2002 when the assholes above us decided to rig repairs to the stove rather than call the landlord.

Water-damage... all the fire-water drained directly down through my apartment, lost everything in the living room and bed-room.

Actually I wasn't the worst off, the guy below me had more "rare" stuff, he collected stamps and vintage maps.


Hey, at least they saved the building! If it had been "worse" it would have taken down all of the south side of main-street Palmyra NY... that's why they pumped so much water in in such a short period of time.

 

[Miss Chicken]

About three years ago my neighbours' house caught on fire. It occured about 5am and it actually started on the outside of the house (possibly from A BBQ they had used the previous evening).

First I new of it was when I heard popping sounds. I looked out of my windows and saw flames above my neighbour's roof. I ran outsde in my nightie concerned that my neighbours were still asleep. As I reached the end of my path my neighbours (Kylie and Peter), their young son and their two dogs can running out the front door. Just as they were running out the kitchen windows exploded allowing the fire to enter the house, it then spread into the loungeroom and into the roof.

We, including Kylie, sat on the steps of a house across the road, while some of the men fought the fire with garden hoses. Finally the firemen arrived and put the blaze out.

I never realised how loud and smelly house fires were until then.

Kylie lost most of her possessions either burnt or water damaged. It was several months before the house was liveable again and the family could move back in.

 

[RJDiogenes]

I'm glad everything is okay, QCzar. That sounds pretty scary.

I hate even thinking about fires. When I was a kid, I used to have nightmares about the house burning down and it's still one of the scariest things I can think of.

 

[Plecostomus]

I hate apartment living since the fire in Palmyra. If I do something dumb and burn the house around me that's all well and good. I don't want some arse setting fire to MY stuff and I sure as heck don't want to be responsible for putting 30 people on the street because of my dumb-arse-ness.