An Apartment of Smoke and Fire

There was a fire in my apartment building, the neighbors below me burned their kitchen and so the entire building was filled with smoke. I ignored the sweet scent at first, it was a summer evening, I had the windowns open and sometimes smell things people on the street below are puffing or the exhaust from a car or whatever. The sound of a smoke detector is not unusual to hear for a few moments in apartment buildings so I really didn’t think it was very serious until the neighbors outside shouted something about “your apartment is on fire”, that did really get my attention. 

With my shirt pulled over my nose I escaped quickly, for some reason grabbing a jacket on the way out the door despite the 80F temp (thats 31C). My phone had been in my hand the entire time of course! Then I ran for my life to get outside down four flights of stairs. Tears were streaming from my face not caused by sadness or fear at that point, just the poisonous black smoke in my eyes from the hallway. I tried not to inhale at all within the building, and when I escaped, I concentrated on keeping my breath steady throughout this ordeal (and continuing through this week).  

The kids who live in the badly burned apartment were crying and screaming, clutching each other and wailing, it was a nightmare. The fire was extinguished within 20 minutes according to a newspaper article my dear daughter read to me later. She was thankfully visiting other family at the time so I was able to have her emotional support through sending panicked messages and scary pics of our smokey home instead. Everyone had to wait an hour or two until a fire inspector said it was safe to enter again. It was very awkward to stand around wondering how bad the damage would be, and there was a moment when four firefighters went on the roof with a chainsaw, that seemed bad, but luckily they didn’t have to use it to cut any holes. The most burned unit was boarded up and a serious padlock placed onto the sealed doorway.  

The firefighters had brought their hose and dragged it through my apartment, pulling down every curtains and opening every closet, doorway and window wide. I understand that’s how the fire was able to extinguish and am just trying to give a description of what happened, please don’t think this is a complaint! They used one of my kitchen chairs to prop the door open wide, it was a shocking state to see my usually cosy home. I am very thankful to everyone who was working on the emergency. There is a lot to clean from the smoke and fire  damage and also a few more things disturbed from the rescue efforts as well. 

Some of my neighbors had their doorknobs broken by the firefighters trying to enter but thankfully mine was spared by having been left unlocked.  It’s not something I had planned to do but somehow a brilliant instinct spared me at least one annoying repair. 

The cleaning project I have been stuck with is so depressing. The residue from my neighbor’s possessions burning has left a sticky grey coating over every surface. To the naked eye it looked like items could be “fine” but a black ash coats the fingers after touching nearly anything. My windows remain open and fans blasting trying to get rid of the awful smell. It has improved somewhat, but it still is toxic and oppressive. The mental health counselor I talked to on the phone was not very helpful, suggesting I “be patient and kind to myself” so I told her that I am more comforted by cleaning, and felt anxious to get back to it, so we rescheduled to talk another time. 

I still want to keep up with my hobbies, but it’s been a hard time trying to focus on anything more than cleaning, with breaks to play a videogame for a while. Thanks for reading my blog and feel free to share any advice or thoughts about cleaning or otherwise emotionally dealing with smoke and fire damages.  It seems like there is news from Hawaii about a bad time they’re having with fire, too, so I know I’m not alone here.