thedeadlyhook (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thedeadlyhook) wrote2006-01-20 10:08 am
thedeadlyhook) wrote2006-01-20 10:08 am
Fire!
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.
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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...
no subject
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.