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To the Rescue
On August 22nd, the afternoon was another beautiful sunny day. I was sitting at my desk drawing when Tara pointed out that we ought to enjoy the sun while it's still in the sky... I felt she made a good argument and decided to put down my pen, and put on my shoes. Moments later we were walking down the pathway at the end of our street discussing where we should walk to. I could smell smoke. It smelled as if someone was burning leaves in their yard. But, it also seemed odd since there are no leaves on the ground just yet and our neighborhood doesn't seem like the area of town where people would care enough to have a burning barrel. As well, a campfire at 2 in the afternoon on a Wednesday seemed out of place. Out of curiousity, I suggested we follow the smoke just to see what's burning.
Well, as you probably guessed, the smoke was a townhouse on fire. There was a bunch of dead grass near the front door burning with orange flames which spread to the flower box below the kitchen window which was also flickering with flames. I immediately rang the doorbell to see if anyone was inside but no answer. Tara was already dialing 9-1-1. The kitchen window was cracked from the heat of the flames. I wasn't really sure what to do. I figured the fire department would arrive soon enough (it actually only took about 8 minutes for them to arrive), but was concerned the fire could spread into the house by that time... Luckily, there was a garden hose hooked up. So, I turned on the hose and started spraying down the flames creating lots of cool smoke. It was kind of fascinating since everytime I thought I had the fire out, the flames would just come alive again. Fire is persistent.
Anyhow, the firemen arrived which in turn caused all the neighbours to come out and stand around. They took over my post and started tearing things apart to be certain the flames were dead. It was all a matter of lucky timing. If the window had eventually shattered, the flames would have likely moved inside onto the curtains and so on. So, a few minutes more and the whole townhouse complex could have gone up! The firemen told us we did a good job and that made my day. We continued on with our walk and found a decent little cafe where I enjoyed homemade apple pie and ice cream.
The end.
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Awesome. Tim's a hero!