fire on the roof

Last night around 11:30 or 11:45, our doorbell rang a few times kind of frenetically - it rang once and then stopped. Then it rang 1 1/2 times and stopped. Then it rang again and stopped. None of those rings were long enough for me to actually reach the doorbell, and you can't see who's at the door or buzz anyone in if they've already hung up, so I just ignored it and kept on doing my thing, whatever that was. A short while later, someone knocked on the door, said there was a fire in the building, and we all needed to get out. At that point, my mind went pretty blank other than "Get Charli." Sam was home too, but Brian was still at work. We got the baby and some stuff together and headed out to the street.

Just as we got down to the lobby, some firefighters broke down the door on the way in. We headed out and they headed in. We had pretty much no idea what was happening, and couldn't see any fire, but there were 3 big fire trucks and couple of smaller fire vehicles right outside, and they were sending the ladder up the side of the building. Turns out there had been a fire on the roof, and a passerby had seen it from the street and was the person ringing all the doorbells, trying to contact someone to tell them there was a fire on the roof. Our neighbor in #2 was the person she actually managed to contact, and he ran up to the roof and tried to put out the fire with the hose up there. He was able to contain the fire, but not actually extinguish it. There had been a party up there early in the evening, and some idiot had put their cigarette in the planter box, where it smoldered for a while before eventually setting it on fire. Fortunately, our deck is made of ironwood, which doesn't really burn so well, so the fire was not able to spread much. The planter was just redwood though, and is now gone.

The damage was not too bad, as it turns out, thank goodness. There was obviously damage to the deck, and a little bit of damage to the roof below it, and some of the siding on the deck wall nearest the planter melted. There was water damage to the unit below the planter, and in our stairwells where there was soot tracked all over as well as water damage from the firehose pipes. But no one was injured, and Charli and I actually got to meet some neighbors from across the street, who saw I was standing outside at midnight with a baby, and asked us to come inside while we were waiting.

Perhaps you are wondering how Charli was throughout this ordeal? Well, she actually slept all through me getting her out of bed and wrapping her in a blanket, the door being bashed in, and all the general chaos out on the street. She didn't actually wake up until I started talking to someone, and then she lifted up her head, and pointed and said excitedly, "Guck! Guck!" Yes, Charli, those are trucks... She stayed awake for maybe the next hour or two, being very cute and happy, and then she went back to sleep without too much of a fuss when we put her back to bed. What a wonderful child.

Firetrucks outside our building


Hanging out outside at midnight


Cleaning up a bit


Damage