Ladder 49

This happened almost a week ago, but this is the first chance I've had to tell you guys about it. I didn't even have to go to Calgary to get an exciting story for you...here it is. My parents, my brother and I went to my grandparents' house to have lunch last Sunday. At the end of the meal, my grandma noticed some smoke down the street. We all looked at it and thought someone was grilling or something. A few minutes pass, and my grandma thinks it's getting worse. My mom got up to look out of a window where we could actually see down the street. "Uh, about four houses down across the street, the house is on fire!" Huh. Needless to say, we all bolted out of the house. That was when we saw all of the really bad black smoke coming out of the top of the house. We tried to help the neighbors keep their houses wet, but by that time there wasn't much we could do except wait for the firemen to get there. Unfortunately, they didn't show up until about 20 minutes after we showed up.

I can totally understand how people can turn into pyromaniacs or arsonists. I was totally hypnotized by this fire while we were standing there. The front door was blown off by the explosions that started the fire, so you could see straight into the house. Watching the body of that fire moving in that house was amazing. I told my dad, "Man, that's one amazing creation - fire." There's nothing else like it in the world. I feel totally terrible for the people who lived there (no one was home when it started) because they lost everything they own, but that was the coolest thing I've seen in a very long time. The flames that were shooting out of the upstairs window were 25-30 feet long, and we could feel the heat from the fire where we were standing next to the house across the street. WOW!! We stood out there for several hours, resulting in what I'm diagnosing as a slight case of smoke inhalation for me. I had a pretty persistent headache for the rest of the day. I took a deep breath when I was going to bed, and I felt some crackling in my chest. NOT GOOD! Fortunately, it was all gone when I woke up Monday morning.

This whole situation should result in several lawsuits, especially one against the gas company for negligence. I haven't heard anything about it sense then, but I'll keep you updated when I hear anything.