Fire!

[thedeadlyhook]

Well, that was neat. Today I stopped a fire.

On my morning walk, heading up toward Golden Gate Park, I heard this sizzle-popping sound. Retraced my steps a few yards to investigate and holee-hell, an overhead electrical line had thrown up sparks and smoke, fried through its casing, and was now burning merrily. Like a little stovetop fire, about twelve inches away from the building the power line went into.

I asked another passerby if he had a phone; he didn't, and suggested I ring an apartment bell instead. Which I did - climbed the stairs, buzzed the buzzer closest to the problem and told the lady who answered the door. And then told some other residents as they were coming out to go to work. Everybody was fairly open-mouthed - I mean, there you are, coming out of your building in the morning, and here's this minor conflagration doing its campfire-style thing, right there in the open air. Inside of fifteen minutes, a firetruck rolled up, and about five or six people and four big dogs from the building got to stand on the sidewalk and rubberneck as one of the firefighters went up to the second floor apartment and put out the little fire with an extinguisher. The fire was right outside the window.

Apparently, one of the residents told me, they'd turned on the heat that morning, and all the lights had dimmed; I also heard another resident say the same thing had happened when she'd been using her hair dryer. Obviously an overload and yeah, old building. Which reminded me of one of our old apartments, the one in which the lights sometimes dimmed when the refrigerator kicked on. Scary.

But what really scares me to think about is how long a little fire like that might have burned without anyone noticing, if everyone had been at work. Outside, no smoke, nothing to set off a fire alarm, but how long would it have taken to have burned its way up the line until it reached the building? Or ignited one of the other lines?

Really scary.

Comments

[bogwitch.livejournal.com]

Now, I suppose, they'll have re-wire the whole building.

I had to call the FB once when my mum set her kitchen alight. She left me in the house to phone while she and my friend evacuated.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

I'd hope they'd get an electrician in right away. I made sure to mention that to one of the residents - I mean, god only knows what could be going on inside those walls.

Eek, kitchen fire - that must've been a frightening one. Even as small as this little fire was, it really reminded me how much respect one has to have for such things - how easily they can get out of control.

But I really found myself wishing for a cell phone. I suppose one of these days I'll have to knuckle under and get one. Staying in the house to make a call, while it's on fire? Yikes.

[bogwitch.livejournal.com]

It wasn't a huge fire, but terrifying when you're in it and you're 15.

No one is without a mobile here, you'd be looked at funny.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

It wasn't a huge fire, but terrifying when you're in it and you're 15.

I can imagine. Super brave you!

I'm kind of looked at funny here for not having a mobile, but so far we haven't been able to justify the cost. I've been meaning to look into those pay-as-you-go phones again - we had one for awhile, but then the contract changed to a monthly fee, which was exactly what we didn't want in the first place, so we let that lapse.

[deborahc.livejournal.com]

You done good ::pats you on back::. You may well have the building and the people who live there from being homeless.

After resisting longer than most I finally cracked and bought a pay as you go cell phone last summer. I really felt as if I'd been forced into it because apparently, generally available working pay phones have become a quaint anachronism. The last straw was when I was late for a volunteer assignment because I'd gone to the wrong location and needed to find out where I actually was supposed to be. So I'm driving around desparately looking for a pay phone and all I could find was one broken (or perhaps no longer maintained) payphone after another. It really pisses me off. I resent being forced into the expense of buying a gadget I'd happily do without. Next it will be HD TVs and digital cable and who knows what else...

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

I feel the same way. But then I'm also one of those cranks that insists on using public transit instead of owning my own car, which is the expected standard for most of the U.S., so you could say I just have a general chip on my shoulder in terms of expecting certain services to be available to the public and not suck. Pay phones are really becoming scarce, it's true - there was a big controversy here in SF a few years back about pay phones at bus stops, because the residents of a particular neighborhood insisted that people use them to sell drugs! Gasp! How that translated to nobody else should be able to use a public phone, I've never been able to figure out.

But... yeah. I really should have one. I've been trying to arrange for more contract work too, and I'm almost postive it's working against me to not have one.

[timeofchange.livejournal.com]

Go you! Fire is scary. It can do so much damage so fast, huh?

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

While we were standing on the sidewalk gawking, we were actually watching it get bigger. And drop these big pieces of carbonized casing to the ground as it ate its way up the wire. I kept thinking, "good damn thing this happened outside!", but that wouldn't have mattered long if the wind were blowing the right way or...

The whole thing was just freaky. Knowing as you're standing there what could happen if you just allowed it to do its thing. Me and the first passerby were both, "um... yeah. Probably should do something."

[danceswithwords.livejournal.com]

And you weren't even wearing your superhero cape! (Or were you?)

In the apartment I lived in in the Mission, the wiring was distributed such that if you ran the dishwasher in the kitchen, a computer in the front bedroom, and turned the heat on in the living room, it would blow a fuse. It was awesome. My current house still has the original gas ceiling fixtures, and they're a little leaky. Oh San Francisco, you lovable city full of picturesque death traps you.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

I was just walking to the park. Not even jogging, like all the athletic types. : )

Ah, SF apartments. Our lights-dim-when-the-fridge-turns-over place had a similar default combo that would always blow a fuse - I think it was TV-computer-too many lights-fridge on, and then anything else you hit after that was the clincher. The toaster. The vacuum. The bathroom light. We used to try to juggle the plugs so everything wasn't quite so daisy-chained, but it never worked. There were only about four plugs in the entire apartment. And I've lived in a place with the gas fixtures, but they weren't hooked up anymore. Luckily.

[desoto-hia873.livejournal.com]

You're a hero! Good thing you looked up when you were walking. I tend to look at the ground - I'd probably have missed it altogether.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

I totally was looking at the ground - or rather, ahead of me, spacing out as usual. If I hadn't heard the popping sound, I wouldn't have seen it. A good thing I wasn't wearing headphones!

[asta77.livejournal.com]

Now, will you be getting the key to the city or the fire extinguisher? ;) What really scares me is that there are people who probably would have just kept on walking.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

The fire extinguisher, I expect! Hee. I'm feeling extra glad now we have one in our kitchen.

there are people who probably would have just kept on walking.

Now that's really scary. I'd like to think anyone who saw it would've called it in. The thing that weirded me out was how easily it could have just not been spotted until it had already become a huge problem.

The thing I used to hate most about living right downtown in SF (well, aside from the horrific traffic, and the way drivers tend to treat pedestrians as targets, even in areas with a lot of foot traffic) was the fire engines - all day, every day, it seemed, you'd get the big blaring horns and the screeching sirens. I don't think I've ever lived more than four or five blocks from a local firehouse, and sometimes... well, the noise gets tiring.

I think I've got a little better appreciation now why they're there. Lots of old buildings, lots of old wiring... probably they answer calls like this all the time.

[cirrisian.livejournal.com]

You, my dear, are a true hero...sadly, this makes you my arch-nemesis.

Ill buy a red cape for you, and a black one for myself. Then, we can don them in the deep night and have epic battles of great justice!

...or I can just commend you on a job well done. I think my first idea is loads more fun.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

Aha! It was YOU who lit that place on fire! I should have guessed.

I do like the cape idea. : )

[rahirah]

Go you with the civic responsiblity!

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

Aw, thanks. I like to think anyone would have done the same. At least, I hope so. And I just happened to be there.

[prophecygirrl.livejournal.com]

Wow! Very impressive!

Be careful, though, this hero thing can be very addictive. Just ask Spike.



Kudos, anyway.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

Heh! I'm hoping this sort of thing won't come up too often. Although I did notice one of the firefighters was female, and had half a mind to ask her how tough the program was. Although I'm sure I'm too old anyway. But I can see how you could get addicted to the adrenaline.

Not that I did much more than ring a doorbell, but... I get the idea of it, anyway.

[queenofattolia.livejournal.com]

Good Lord. And practically every house around there is made of wood, right? Jeebus. You probably saved lives, if not homes and personal possessions. Good on you.

Makes me wonder about the lines running through big old trees in my neighborhood. Practically all the houses around here are made of stucco, but still...

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

The whole neighborhood is pretty much wood-based, but I hadn't realized how many overhead power lines there were until I started looking, and they do look plenty vulnerable there, just out in the open. It was a scary feeling. Our building is fairly new, but I don't suppose that'd matter much if the old building next door went up. I guess it's up to all of us to be as neighborly as we can to keep the whole place from turning into a disaster area.

And yeah, power lines running through the trees... yikes. Gotta wonder about some of those. At the very least the branches should probably be trimmed back so a big storm can't pull the lines down.

[wickedgillie.livejournal.com]

One thing I've found in buildings like the one you described is that there is either no extinguisher at all on each floor, or it's several years out of date and left with barely enough pressure to blow out a birthday candle. I know we had to report our landlord (who lived in the next building, rather than the abstentee landlords one usually finds) for her extinguishers being out of date. She fixed it once, and then it slowly got to the point where it was expired again. (lived there 7 years, lol)

Anyhoo, YOU are a HERO my dear! Well done!!!

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

Aww, thank you. Our landlord's been very good about making sure we have a working extinguisher, but I've lived in buildings where that wasn't a priority, like you describe. It is creepy to realize how ill-prepared the average tenant is to face something catastrophic - I look back now at our old place with the dimming-lights problem and now I'm amazed we got out of there alive. Now I get it why the biggest price tag on those million-dollar Victorians is always said to be the electrical upgrade after the sale. Hundred-year-old wiring really wasn't meant to power modern appliances.