sirens????

Today shortly after Justin left for work, I woke up to the sound of sirens. I always listen to see how far away they are going. Today they were one right after another. But they would start and then they would abruptly end and they were surprisingly loud. About the time I thought I should get up and take a looksee, I heard the sound of a very heavy truck on my street, you know the kind that are louder than the garbage truck. Well I looked out the bedroom window and saw the firetrucks and lights right in front of the neighbors house. I thought that the older lady across the street and down a few houses was dieing. She is a friend of the family so I was hurriedly throwing on clothes. I checked out the backdoor and let the dog out and that is when I noticed fire shooting out of the back of the house 2 doors down. And smoke billowing from the roof. When I stepped outside this is the scene that I was greeted with. Along with lots of ash falling around me.


I did not have my camera on me at first and I was too dumbstruck to go right in and get it. They(firemen) were quite good at what they did and they got it under control rather quickly and they really move fast. At this point they were using a chainsaw to cut into the attic. They sprayed in some water. This is what it looked like after they cut it up a bit. They were still mostly focused on the back of the house where the flames were originally shooting out of they kitchen area, my neighbor said from his kitchen window you can see the whole back of the house looks melted.

Just as we thought everything was under control we noticed that the smoke started building again in the attic area.

And within seconds we could hear the crackling and poping of the fire. And then the flames were coming out of the attic.

Seeing that there was more fire, the firemen scrambled to the garage roof again and started hosing it down.

Before long they had it under control again and I was told that the reason they were having such a hard time fighting this fire was that there was a double roof on the house. It was originally a flat roof house and someone had built a pitched roof on top of that. So there were hot spots that they could not see or get to.

They took up saws and started cutting up the roof top. now you can see the holes from the opening in the attic.I was very concerned for the family(s) living there. There are alot of children that live in that house, so as soon as I saw that the battalion chief was available (very early on) I wanted him to know that the family had alot of kids. He said that they were going in shortly to check and that they would clear the house. I was worried because for 15 minutes after the fire started there were no people coming out of the house and also there were no firemen going in. Which I completely understand, it has to be safe for them to go inside. I felt it was important that they know alot of small children live there. After they cleared the house he came to me and told me that there was no one inside. As far as I know, the people from the house don't even know it burned down no one has come home in terror or shock. I am feeling really bad about the fact that they will have no warning this evening when they come home to nothing.