Crazy Stories: Part 2

Here's the second installment of the "Crazy Story" series. This one starts a couple of days before Christmas, I think it was the 23rd to be exact. Gabe was playing games on the computer and I was in the other room, likely scrambling to get things finalized for the holidays.

Gabe said, "Mommy, look at that smoke!" At first glance, I thought a very heavy fog had set in, and said, "Oh, wow, it got really foggy?" Then, as I was looking out the kitchen window a WALL of dark black smoke came rolling toward us and I realized the house directly across the alley from us was on fire. And not a little fire.

I yelled for Dan and we called 911 immediately. They were already aware and we started to see the firefighters showing up. There were times when the smoke was so thick and black I started to worry about it getting into our house (selfishly). This picture shows you where the house is (looking out the back window), but was taken after the flames started to die down (you really can't even see the house that's on fire):

As we were watching in shock, we hear a banging noise. We both looked at each other puzzled and then thought maybe the firefighters were knocking on our front door. Then we immediately realized they were trying to get through the locked gate across our driveway (we have the only driveway access on our block) to take a hose through to spray the back of the house. By the time we looked out our side window, we saw this:

Since the gate was locked, they literally tore it down. We completely understood, as they needed to do what they needed to do, and in comparison to what was going on with our neighbors, it was a minor setback.

Here are a couple of shots of the firefighters in our yard. We all know that firefighters are true heroes, but I'm not sure you can REALLY know that until you've seen them in action. We were truly amazed at what they were doing over there...unbelievable. Makes me very thankful for them (and very not crazy about my sister becoming a firefighter!). We tried offering Christmas cookies and hot coffee when things died down, but they were still pretty busy.

I didn't take any pics of the worst part of the fire, mostly because we were just in shock and really hoping that the folks were OK. In the end, no one died and those with injuries recovered OK. I was able to help some folks we know on that block pick up some necesseties with funds that had been raised and deliver them to the family in their temporary home (thanks to those who donated). Right now, the home is still boarded up (pic below) and you can see that the flames were so huge on the one side that their neighbors sustained significant damage as well. The fire was started by a space heater on the front porch; I think there were around 15 people living there, including lots of kids, so it's amazing everyone got out safely or recovered from their injuries.

As for the gate, Dan was able to put it back up temporarily the next day before we left for Christmas. Then, this past weekend, Tim and Sandi were gracious enough to spend their Saturday helping us put up the brand new one. Thanks, guys! We really appreciated the help!

The fire chief said we should file a claim with the city for payment, so we'll see how that goes, but we're not holding our breath. Dan went over to talk to them about after things were wrapping up, because it looked like a couple of them were pointing and laughing. :-( Again, we understood, but we really thought we'd get a knock on the door saying, "hey, sorry, we'll pay for that" or something. Not quite. Still heroes, though. :-)