Exciting night for us last night! We went to bed at a reasonable time with minimal fuss (10:30ish?), and Calvin slept like a champ, only waking up hungry around 3am. At that point Lisa took care of him, then went downstairs because she couldn’t fall back asleep right away. As she came back upstairs around 3:30am, she asked me if it smelled anything funny. I took a big sniff, agreed with her and promptly fell back asleep….
She woke me up 10 seconds later after investigating a little bit more and looking out our window to find monster flames reflecting off of our neighbor’s windows closer to the end of our complex (20 feet away). We quickly burst into action, me grabbing Calvin, an infant onesie that hasn’t fit him in 6 weeks (I was in a rush!) and a pair of shorts; Lis running outside to check everything out quickly, calling 911, alerting a neighbor and then coming in the house almost relaxed like we were good to go now. She quickly rebounded, realized we were still in an emergency situation and remembered to grab the car seat and the diaper bag that I had overlooked.
As we left the house, both dogs started barking from the smoke and the lights from the fire, and I realized that this was the situation that Bessie had been waiting for her whole life! Bark Bessie! Bark! You bark for 10 minutes when a neighbor brings out their trash can! You almost rip down the door when a package gets delivered by the mail man – THIS IS YOUR TIME TO SHINE! ….
10 seconds of barking and then they were dead quiet…. (to say I was disappointed would be a severe understatement)
So I took it upon myself to run up and knock on some neighbors doors to alert them, and somehow Darby got off the leash. I looked back quickly to her being in complete bewilderment – trying to decide if she should run home, run away or what. Then she saw Lis getting the car ready and ran to her – smart dog.
By now Lisa, Calvin and the dogs were in the car ready to peace out, all the neighbors had been alerted and emergency services were rushing in. We tried to pull out of the driveway, but were not able to go anywhere due to the 3 fire engines blocking our path, so just pulled to a safe spot on the road and let the car running so that Calvin wouldn’t have to directly breathe in what would turn out to be a mixture of plastic/feces smoke.
I don’t want to go on for too long here, so basically what happened next was extended chaos, with all our neighbors just watching and saying hello to each other for the first time. Turns out that the port-o-potty in the back alley (we have had workers in our complex for 2 weeks) was lit on fire, and the end unit nearest to it also had a big whole burned through it.
We ended up with 3-4 fire trucks, 2-3 EMT’s and another handful of cop cars outside of our place, all with sirens flashing. Calvin LOVED it – SO many bright colors.
About an hour in they said we could head back in. It was almost 5am by this time, so Lis and I were up for good. We realized that we had gotten pretty lucky and that we were glad Calvin was hungry when he was and that Lis couldn’t go back to bed. Not sure what I did to help the team, but everyone in the complex was primarily ok, and only some property damage to the end unit.
Exciting night that I hope never happens again!
PS - Another thought I had later on was what if we had not woken up in time. And I don’t mean that as in if any of us had gotten hurt, because that is just depressing. I mean, what would I have done if the flames were leaping up the stairs to our house (only way out) when we realized what was happening. I’ve come to two conclusions – 1, wrap calvin in a wet towel, toss Lisa on my back and I would barrel through the fire with no regard for my own safety, or 2) strap Calvin onto my chest, jump out the guest room window, use the porch ceiling for quick support as I barrel rolled off. I would then land quickly on the 1st floor porch before leaping with a quick roll onto the ground on our basement level – protecting Calvin the whole way obviously. Then talking Lisa through the whole stunt-team-esque maneuver. Pretty awesome all the way around, although I'm not sure why I immeadiately started daydreaming even crazier scenarios...
She woke me up 10 seconds later after investigating a little bit more and looking out our window to find monster flames reflecting off of our neighbor’s windows closer to the end of our complex (20 feet away). We quickly burst into action, me grabbing Calvin, an infant onesie that hasn’t fit him in 6 weeks (I was in a rush!) and a pair of shorts; Lis running outside to check everything out quickly, calling 911, alerting a neighbor and then coming in the house almost relaxed like we were good to go now. She quickly rebounded, realized we were still in an emergency situation and remembered to grab the car seat and the diaper bag that I had overlooked.
As we left the house, both dogs started barking from the smoke and the lights from the fire, and I realized that this was the situation that Bessie had been waiting for her whole life! Bark Bessie! Bark! You bark for 10 minutes when a neighbor brings out their trash can! You almost rip down the door when a package gets delivered by the mail man – THIS IS YOUR TIME TO SHINE! ….
10 seconds of barking and then they were dead quiet…. (to say I was disappointed would be a severe understatement)
So I took it upon myself to run up and knock on some neighbors doors to alert them, and somehow Darby got off the leash. I looked back quickly to her being in complete bewilderment – trying to decide if she should run home, run away or what. Then she saw Lis getting the car ready and ran to her – smart dog.
By now Lisa, Calvin and the dogs were in the car ready to peace out, all the neighbors had been alerted and emergency services were rushing in. We tried to pull out of the driveway, but were not able to go anywhere due to the 3 fire engines blocking our path, so just pulled to a safe spot on the road and let the car running so that Calvin wouldn’t have to directly breathe in what would turn out to be a mixture of plastic/feces smoke.
I don’t want to go on for too long here, so basically what happened next was extended chaos, with all our neighbors just watching and saying hello to each other for the first time. Turns out that the port-o-potty in the back alley (we have had workers in our complex for 2 weeks) was lit on fire, and the end unit nearest to it also had a big whole burned through it.
We ended up with 3-4 fire trucks, 2-3 EMT’s and another handful of cop cars outside of our place, all with sirens flashing. Calvin LOVED it – SO many bright colors.
About an hour in they said we could head back in. It was almost 5am by this time, so Lis and I were up for good. We realized that we had gotten pretty lucky and that we were glad Calvin was hungry when he was and that Lis couldn’t go back to bed. Not sure what I did to help the team, but everyone in the complex was primarily ok, and only some property damage to the end unit.
Exciting night that I hope never happens again!
PS - Another thought I had later on was what if we had not woken up in time. And I don’t mean that as in if any of us had gotten hurt, because that is just depressing. I mean, what would I have done if the flames were leaping up the stairs to our house (only way out) when we realized what was happening. I’ve come to two conclusions – 1, wrap calvin in a wet towel, toss Lisa on my back and I would barrel through the fire with no regard for my own safety, or 2) strap Calvin onto my chest, jump out the guest room window, use the porch ceiling for quick support as I barrel rolled off. I would then land quickly on the 1st floor porch before leaping with a quick roll onto the ground on our basement level – protecting Calvin the whole way obviously. Then talking Lisa through the whole stunt-team-esque maneuver. Pretty awesome all the way around, although I'm not sure why I immeadiately started daydreaming even crazier scenarios...
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