Neighborhood Party

Last night we were on our patio, finishing off the last of our watermelon dessert when we heard sirens.

"They sound like they're getting close." said Toby and we went back to debating if we should do something fun or productive after dinner.

I heard the hiss and squeal of breaks in front of our house - it sounded like a dump truck or something else big so I went to the fence and looked through. I saw a firetruck parked right in front of our house and smoke coming out of the house across the street.

We grabbed Robbie and stood in our front yard to watch. The fire crew piled off the truck and started making preparations....and then they kept preparing. They put on their clothes, they pulled out some hose, they hooked up the hose, they adjusted clothes, the fixed the hose hookup, water gushed out of the truck, they put on their tanks, and on...and on.

Toby and I looked at each other.

"Isn't this taking a long time?" I asked.

"This is a fiasco." he confirmed.

If a fire was so bad it required 911 attention - why was the fire crew proceeding so slowly to help? As they kept preparing, more emergency cars and trucks pulled up. One, then two ambulances, another fire truck, several police cars, even the division of natural resources truck came to the scene. Before it was over there were 6 fire vehicles, two ambulances, four cops and a few other odd and ends - sherrifs and forrest rangers...all we were missing was a meter maid.

Not only were we flush with emergency crew, we had the whole neighborhood out in little clutches. I met neighbors last night I'd never even laid eyes on in 18 months of living here.

"We don't need a neighborhood barbeque," said Toby "we just need to set someone's house on fire."

So what was going on in the house? Apparently one of their kids (they have five boys) was playing with a lighter or some such thing and caught a closet on fire. Lucky for him, he was not the same boy that broke their living room window with a rock two weeks ago. One kid can probably only take so much punishment. I can only imagine what kind of punishment I'd have gotten for setting the house in fire.

Fortunately the family is fine...but I am very nervous about the possibility of our house ever catching fire, given the "rapid response time" of our local emergency crew.