FIRE

My heart if finally calming down now. I was sure buzzed on adreneline for a while and I was shaking.

One of the few nights that I'm not dealing with insomnia and I'm wide awake again at 1:38am. I got to bed before 11pm which is a big deal and was sleeping okay till we hear a pounding on our door. Being apartment managers really sucks and I thought it was someone who got towed and they didn't know what to do. Jason stumbles to answer the door and after a second, he comes back to get some pants and runs back out. That scared me. When I asked what was wrong, he said one of the residents said there was a fire. Initially he thought it was one of the apartments on fire. But the guy who pounded on his door said it was in the park.

We are in apartments that butt up against a park. We have a fence on the backside of the park with an entrance to it about 25 feet from my front door. Our bedroom windows face the park. There are about a dozen or more 6-7 story high Douglas Fir trees on the backside of the park which means they are very close to us. When dh told me the park had a fire, I look out our bedroom window and the tree in front of our window about 35 feet away is on FIRE. Well, the bushes around the tree were red with ambers up to 6 feet high and a couple of flames would burst out every second or so. So not completely on fire, but just a few minutes away. We haven't had rain in a long time and the park was crispy brown. That tree would have gone up like a torch. About 3 of us call 911 and describe it to them. I knew dh and the resident were on cell phones and here, if you call 911 on a cell, you get a recording first. I didn't know how long they would be delayed if calling on them, so I called on our office phone which is a landline.

Thank goodness for the fire department that is less than 4 blocks away!!! They were here in a minute or so of my phone call and the fire was out seconds later. The fire investigation team has called us already asking if we know who set it, if we saw anything, etc. When I was calling, I saw someone run across in front of the tree but it was a shadow and I don't know much more than that.

But the girls never even made a peep!! The fire truck was right in front of our apartment and it was loud with it's engine rumbling. They had a floodlight on the truck and it was shining towards the park and therefore in our living room windows too. Nothing phased them at all. They sleep lousy at night lately so I was sure one of them would be up.

Fire is one of my biggest fears in life. I was so scared when I looked out our bedroom window. All I can think of now, is what would have happened if that guy who pounded on our door hadn't of just got home from work at 12:30am, smelled smoke and called us. Would it have gotten into a full fledged fire and reached anywhere near us? Would we have smelled the fire or would our apartment caught fire? All I can think of are worst case scenarios and I can't sleep. The one freaking night that I don't have insomnia and I can't go back to sleep!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!