♥ She colours the ceiling with pink highlighter. ♥ (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} kittycat_black) wrote,@ 2005-06-17 17:18:00 |
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| Entry tags: | fiascos |
FIRE!
The night before last there was a fire in our building!
It was about 1am or maybe 1.30 am... of course we were still awake. We were actually about to start watching a DVD... when we heard the fire alarm go off. It happened one other day too so we thought it was just another false alarm, maybe some kid set it off or something. After a while it stopped and we thought we were right. It went off a couple more times and we though... ok maybe this is for real or at least we'll have to leave the building. We looked out the window and saw someone running from our building to the other building frantically. Other people in other apartments were also peering out of their windows.
Still we thought it was probably just a false alarm, until we opened the window and smelt smoke. I stuck my head out and saw heaps of smoke pouring out from the side of the building. It sort of looked like it was coming from the building site next door (which is actually part of our lot... it's the third building they are putting up).
So we grabbed our jackets and left the apartment. Of course we had to go down the stairs and there were people frantically coming down the flights of stairs... some guy shouted something at us in Spanish (probably asking us what was going on). We had to say we didn't understand and just keep moving. As we got closer to the bottom levels of the building the smoke got thicker and it was pretty scary. Thankfully there was only one more lot of stairs and then we were out of the building.
Everyone was standing around not sure what was going on... when people did say things we had no idea what they were saying because we couldn't understand the Spanish. Heaps of fire trucks came and the firemen were wandering around pretty casually. They had the big hoses leading down into the carpark and some of them wandered up with sooty black stuff on their faces. After a while we met some French people (two guys and a girl) who could speak English and Spanish. They asked others what was going on and then they told us that there had been a fire and it was ok but now they had to ventilate the building... we wouldn't be allowed back in until around 5am! I felt sorry for anyone who had to go to work that day!
So one of the French guys asked us if we wanted to go and get a drink (the other French guy and his girlfriend went off to her house). His name was Florian and he was very friendly and nice. We went to a little snack bar and had some pisco sour with him. Then we all came back to the apartment block. Florian asked the fireman what had happened and he said it was a garbage fire, so we assumed that it had started in the garbage pile in the basement where the garbage disposal shute goes to. Since then we have checked out the garbage area though and it doesn't appear as though there's been any fire in there. *shrugs*
Anyway... they were finally letting us back in so we went up to our apartment which still had a fair bit of smoke in the air. Thank god the birds were alright... I was so worried about them... but I left in too much of a panic to take them too! We opened up all the windows to let the fresh air in and put the birds right near the window... I gave them plenty of fresh food and water. They are doing fine, thank god!
Matt took a photo out the window. Then he wanted to go downstairs to take some photos... which seemed like a good idea until I realised he wanted to go down into the carpark levels where most of the smoke had been. I didn't want him to go alone because I was worried about the smoke (cause the smoke in a building fire usually winds up harming/killing more people than the fire does). So stupidly, I went along too.
We stopped on each level and I held the lift for him while he ran out and took pictures...
Carpark level -1...
Carpark level -2...
Carpark level -3...
Then we came back upstairs. The smoke was NOT good.
Lying on the bed and feeling a bit ill... I liked the menacing view of the building site next door... and I thought it summed up this whole fiasco pretty nicely.
Now we are both fairly sick... we've been coughing heaps, my heads been killing me and my glands are hellishly swollen. Maybe I'm coming down with the flu... either that or it's some pretty bad smoke damage. : / Next time Matt wants to run off into the flames to take photos... I don't believe I'll be going along. lol
