Fire? What Fire? Oh, That Fire

It was a typical Thursday evening here in Pasadena. Things had just started cooling off from the 90-degree high of the day. We had just finished a nice piece of chicken and some cornbread stuffing for dinner and we were sitting on the couch, remote in hand, one again in awe that, with the hundreds of channels on cable, there was, again, absolutely nothing worth watching.

Then the fire engines came. Now, this is not unusual, because the fire station is just two blocks away and our street (Villa), being one of the lesser traveled east-west streets, is often used by the fire department to get somewhere in a hurry: We get our fair share of sirens blazing by on their way to provide aid and assistance.

It is most disconcerting when the sirens reach the our block and stop, and, just as we had decided to pop in the Blu-Ray disc of the last Harry Potter movie yesterday evening, that's what happened. Steve checked at the window and said there were paramedics. Then another siren came. And another. And another.

"Do you smell smoke?" I asked, because I couldn't. "No," Steve replied, "but their are firemen out there."

Well, who can pass up a chance to check out firemen? So, as another two sirens approached in the distance, we went out front to watch the commotion. Most of the neighborhood had beat us to the punch, and it was like a small street fair. We noticed that there were two fire hoses running into the apartment complex next door (own by CalTech and rented out to students and faculty working and studying there). We walked back to the gate at our building and ran into one of the neighbors from our complex (our condo is one of seven in our building, with 14 units total in our HOA).

"There must be a fire," Steve said. "Oh, yeah, there's a fire," the neighbor replied, "it's way in the back." So we walked back to the last unit and, sure enough, smoke was coming through a broken, scorched window. Jesse, the resident of the back unit, had taken some iPhone videos of the fire in progress, and those are included herein.

We had six fire trucks altogether respond to the blaze, which was contained to one unit, with the unit above receiving some damage. No one was injured, thankfully, although one cat was seen scrambling out of the burning apartment and had gone missing.

The street was closed off for several hours as the firemen did their work which was nice, because it meant we didn't have any sirens screaming down the street while watching Harry ultimately vanquish Voldemort (I don't think that's a spoiler any longer).

Steve has to get up at 5:45, since he has to be at work at 7 a.m., and even though it's only about 10 minutes away, it's still a drag. Upside of this is he gets off at 3:30 in the afternoon. In any case, he's usually in bed by 10:30 or so, and I stay up later, because I am a night person and there is nothing specific requiring my early rising. I take the opportunity for Steve's early retiring to watch some television that I know he's not interested in. Recently it's been rewatching "Twin Peaks," followed by the Joseph Campbell's philosophy series, "Mythos." It's quite a metaphysical combination.

So that's the excitement of the week from Villa Street in lovely Pasadena. This is an opportunity to make sure your homeowner's/renter's insurance is up to snuff. Remember, smoke damage can be as costly as fire damage, if not more so.