by Catherine Alberto
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It took the fire department quite some time to arrive at the house and even more time setting up. But they had just come from an even bigger fire earlier that day, so we had to be understanding as we waited and watched all of our 'Things' burn to ashes.
To top it all off, we were living on the Top floor of the Victorian, which by the way had posts that went from basement to attic, providing a nice route for the fire to take straight into our unit. Also, the house had about 8 layers of roofing, which made for a nice barrier. In a way it was good that the roofing was so thick because it contained the fire into our house, but on the bright side, it saved all of the neighboring homes from fire.
The fire devoured the entire 3rd floor, leaving only what could be a rooftop patio. It went into every room and took a little bit of everything.
When the Fire was finally out, a Fireman walked us through the home to let us know which parts were safe to walk in and which parts weren�t. Looking through all the rubble, a feeling of sadness and great loss overcame me as I looked at all of our belongings melted and covered with soot. We dug through the ashes, collapsed wood and roofing only to find everything covered in water, melted and smelling of smoke.
I was lucky enough to recover some photo albums that had been stored in a file cabinet. The pictures are in tact, but they smell of smoke and have been damaged by the water. They are pictures of my childhood and of Omari's (my boyfriend) childhood. Unfortunately, every picture I had of my 2-year-old son was stored in my computer. I have not been able to recover his pictures.
We were totally unprepared for this incident. It was the middle of the night. Luckily, our neighbor had been celebrating his birthday and came home around 2:00 AM. Something told him to turn around before he went in the house. This is when he saw what was still a small fire in one of our house's windows. He ran over to our house and knocked on the people's door downstairs. He looked over at the fire and he saw a candle beginning to burn a plant and then the furniture it was on. His knocking turned into banging and yelling.
He had been yelling outside for approximately 10 minutes when Omari finally heard him. He opened our window and looked down. That is when he saw the smoke and it began to gag him. He ran into the bedroom where my son and I were asleep. He said "Wake up! Get the baby, the house is on fire!"
Without a doubt, I got up grabbed the baby and ran as fast as I could to our door. On the way down, we yelled at the neighbors below us to wake up too. They finally woke up and we told them to run. When I reached the ground, I looked up and saw the small blaze growing very rapidly.
Omari tried to fight it with a water hose but it was too strong for him. We yelled at neighbors hoping that one of them would wake up and call the fire department. Other neighbors welcomed us into their homes to keep us warm and our lungs free of the smoke.
Omari was in shock. He watched the fire burn the entire 3 hours that it took the fire department to put it out. He watched his 26 years of memories go up in flames.
Nonetheless, everyone escaped the blaze safely. We are still around to make jokes about the fire in an attempt to stay positive.
There were many people who stepped up and helped us get through these tragic times. We are very thankful for all of those who have helped us get through this disaster. Please click on the Thank you section of this site to see my acknowledgements.
