When I was fourteen, our neighbor’s house burned down. My grandmother woke me up in the middle of the night, “Go unfold the hose—we’ll try to stop the fire from spreading to the trees and other houses.” I got up instantly, put on an old, nearly torn bathrobe and rubber slippers, and got to action. The event felt so urgent it didn’t even occur to me to dress properly.
The fire was huge, and a large area around it was unbelievably hot. I had participated in making a bonfire before but that heat was incomparable. I sprinkled the bushes and greenhouses with water—which felt completely futile. But there was a lot of steam coming off the momentarily wet surfaces so probably it did help after all. A few male neighbors cut the densest trees connecting the adjacent households. All in all, it took about an hour and a quarter for the fire brigade to arrive. Over that time, I got to witness the following events.
First, a filled gas cylinder went off. Thankfully, the hot, burning gas tends to move strictly upwards, so everyone was just startled by the sudden flame pillar which also burned down an old dry pine tree.
Then came the debris. A cast iron sink fell from the sky ten seconds after the explosion, right onto the place for our campfire. Some moments later, plumbing pipes and utensils rained down on the ground, some hitting the forest edge one hundred meters away. A lot of people stood there, idly watching, but no one was hurt—even though a minor injury or two might have been a good lesson for them. Either be helpful or get away from harm’s way!
The last event was difficult to predict. You see, we had expected the gas to be there in the house—everyone had a cylinder—so the explosion was the worst we had feared. Yet no one had thought about a second one. Fortunately, the second one was mostly empty, and that, I think, was what made it wait for so long. But it did explode nevertheless! Precisely at the moment where I got pretty close to the burning house in the rush of midnight heroism.
I got pushed by the blast wave and dragged a few meters. I was extremely lucky, there was only moist grass and dirt all the way behind me. Now, that was a lesson for me: fire is unpredictable. You never know what’s there burning, and what will happen, so be cautious and always double check your decisions. Unless… you know, unless you are blessed by the gods.
As for me, I guess I learned my lesson back then. I didn’t get a strong shock and I’ve always loved fire. I still do act reckless occasionally, even when it involves fire. But I do treat fire with respect. And it reciprocates with warmth.