Fire! Fire!

What an UNbelievable day I have had. To spare you the boring bits, let me tell you about how the house across the road caught fire and burned down to the ground...

It all started with a car crash at the end of my street. It's a short street with only about a dozen homes on it. At the end of the street there was a crash. I looked out the window and saw a car on the correct side of the road had been run into by a car on the wrong side of the road. How this happened I do not know. Suffice to say, the car on the wrong side of the road resembled a car I had previously seen parked at the house that burnt down.

A few minutes after contemplating taking a digital photo of the scene, I heard a car roar off. And when I looked out the window again, the car that was on the wrong side of the road (A Nissan station wagon I think it was. Definitely a station wagon of some kind - a small kind not the large Ford or Holden type, like the Nissan or Toyota type) was not seen. Had it pulled off around the corner or fled the scene? I do not know.

Anyway. A little while later the cops pulled up. And while they were talking to the people whose car had been hit, a guy came from out of the burnt house (before it was burnt) and started yelling at the cops. Only days before he had been carted off by them for some thing or another. And just like the other day, he appeared intoxicated today.

The police told him to "stay there Mike (or mate), I'll see you in a minute". And he was yelling something I couldn't quite make out.

Another police car pulled into the street for some reason. Those officers did speak with the guy and that appeared to be the end of it.

While writing another entry I heard a smoke alarm go off. Nothing unusual there. I looked out the window and saw nothing. The phone rang at 11:46am and I went into my office to take the call. My wife came running in saying there was smoke and to shut the windows. I came out to the front, looked outside and saw the intoxicated man sitting on the sidewalk. He yelled at the police woman something like, "I torched/set-fire-to my house" as she went running to the squad car to, presumably, call the fire brigade and ambulance.

I looked in amazement as flames appeared at the window and the window dressing caught fire. Smoke was really pouring out now and pops, cracks, and breaking glass sounds could be heard. The man was apprehended by the police and driven off - for a long stint in jail I should hope.

I rushed outside, turned on the hose and began watering down everything the water would reach. I didn't want any embers coming to me. I was sheltering behind my car. And every time I stuck my head out from behind the car the heat from the house, which was fully ablaze now, hit me. It was incredible heat. I couldn't believe how the heat could travel so far and still contain so much heat. My adrenalin was pumping in readiness in case I had to make a run for it. And there was a black man in white shorts and t-shirt running around the house calling out for anyone in the house (I don't know who he is but think of him as the mysterious hero - he came, helped the police handle the guy, ran around looking for people, and disappeared as if he had never existed).

Smoke was engulfing the entire street. The car crash people - the one's whose car had been hit - were evacuated away from the smoke and the police stopped all traffic from coming into our street. Five minutes or so after I started hosing down my yard, the fire brigade arrived - very fast but too late to save the house. Secure in the knowledge they would deal with my yard if something should come into it, I retreated to the safety of my home to breathe smoke-free air once again and to watch the proceedings through the window.

For some reason, right out front of my place became the "official" watch zone. Camera crews from Channel 7, 9 and 10 were there. Ambulance, firemen, police, photographers, men in business shirts with notepads (reporters for the paper perhaps?) all standing in front watching the firemen finally put the fire out. And as I watched, it dawned on me that I could have snapped a few shots of the flames and sold them to the paper. But I was too busy trying to protect my home to worry about that kind of thing.

A knock just came at the door. It was a police woman wanting to take a statement. I asked her if she wanted it on disk and told her I had already written it. Invited her in and she just read everything prior to this bit. She noted in her notepad that I had a written account of the sequence of the events, got my name and number and left.

The police seem to be getting statements from other people in the street too.

I feel sorry for the owner of the house. I don't think it was the guy who torched it. I think the place was a rental and he was a tenant. I don't know how the real estate agent will explain to the owner putting in a tenant who appears to be out of work and drunk all the time. Especially now the owner's asset has been destroyed. The damage so intense I can only surmise it will be torn down. (See photos below.)




Oh. Another knock at the door. The police woman is back and asking for a copy of this entry - as written above. So I copied it to disk and gave it to her. Once she has written it into a statement she'll bring it over and I'll sign it.

And now another knock on the door. A detective. Letting me know there is an asbestos concern! So please close all windows and doors until the occupational health and safety guys take care of the roof. Oddly, many of the fire brigade guys are walking around without face masks. So I don't think the concern is too great. Just precautionary for us civilians. Better to be overly cautious, I think is their motto.

Just rubbed the inside of my nose and some gray mucus was obtained. Kept up until clear. Wow, who would have thought that. Just goes to show why we have small hairs in our nose. Seeing this and knowing of the asbestos precaution, I just took 5mg of vitamin C powder - our bodies use it to detox substances - and will take another 5mg in a few hours.

The house that burnt down was a duplex. There were two dwellings on the property. And, it turns out, not connected. Which, I think, saved the other dwelling from destruction.

It just goes to show, you might be ok but you cannot trust your neighbors. And if you move into a duplex, make sure the other tenant is in steady employment - as gainfully and steadily employed people have a sense of responsibility and tend not to do this kind of thing. And if you move in first, ask the real estate agent to only allow tenants who are gainfully and steadily employed as neighbors.

This episode is also an example of how fucked up alcohol can make things. Here is a house, someone's property, totally ruined now because another person drank alcohol.

How would you feel if your $200,000 piece of property was destroyed because of a drunk?

It's not like the other drunk guy who got pissed and jumped off a ship. He only hurt himself. No. This time, other people have been hurt. And if the owner had a loan, he is now stuck paying a loan on a property which does not exist anymore. And he won't get rental income in until the insurance manages to pay for the construction of another property. All of this, thanks to fucking booze.

Onward.

The electricity department has come and disconnected the power at the power pole. And the arson guys are there now. Taking photos. And taking pieces of wood and putting them in white paint tins for later analysis. And, I think, the owner has just turned up. I think it is him because he is dressed in civilian clothes and does not look very happy. And he is being allowed to go in for a closer look - maybe to help tell the arson guys which rooms were which.

It's been nearly five hours since the fire began. Our street is closed off at each end. And fire guys, arson guys and police are still around going through their paces. And when they are done, I think a tarpaulin will be wrapped over the roof - I can see a large tarp waiting on the sidewalk.

Onward.

Well. The fire brigade is gone. The cops are gone. And the arson investigator is packing up. It's 5:30pm and I just spoke with him and he said the asbestos threat is only a concern while the fire is still sending particulate into the air. As it is out now it is ok, and even more so considering it is saturated from the fire fighters. Though he did advise that if it is still uncovered tomorrow I should call the EPA so they can get something done about it. Because something will have to be done anyway for when they tear it down.

Well that's is that. People from around the neighborhood are coming to have a look at it. Maybe it's because they just saw it on the local TV news. Who knows. All I know is we have many on-lookers in our street. And that it was all a little bit of excitement in an otherwise uneventful day.

Tsunami Tsunami With My Brother Jim

I don't know about you, but I am fed up with the non-stop tsunami stuff. Tsunami concert (in which expensive fireworks are shot off). Tsunami telethon. Tsunami door knockers. Tsunami signs up in banks. Tsunami sporting events. Tsunami stories everywhere I look. I can't go five damn minutes without some bloody tsunami thing in my ear or assaulting my eyes.

It's as if nothing else is going on in the world. And the only thing happening is tsunami stories. And these stories are getting more and more pathetic. Such as...

A family is relieved when they finally hear from their son who reassured them he was in a different country when the tsunami hit.

Huh? Like why the hell do I need to know that? I don't know those people. Have never met them. Haven't even ever heard of them before.

It's good they are relieved. But so fricken what? Like I care. And cripes. The guy wasn't even in one of those countries. He was in a country thousands of miles away. A country not even hit by a tsunami anywhere. So why do I need to hear about it?

And I am not the only one. Clients are telling me they are all "tsunamied out". And I agree with them. And wonder...

The govt in Australia is giving one Billion dollars. That's about 52 of my tax dollars being given (and $52 for everyone else too). Given without my permission.

And my local bank too!!! They charge me hundreds of dollars a year in fees for having an account, fees for depositing money, withdrawing money, making teller transactions, making phone transactions, and so on, and then turn around and give hundreds and thousands of dollars to "tsunami relief". Hmmm... how about "fee relief"? And it specially irks me when they raised some of my fees recently. And when I asked why they said, "to bring them in line to what other banks charge." Notice it wasn't due to increase costs or anything. It was because other banks charge more so they will too. So much for competition.

And what's with all the reporting about Banda Aceh? It's as if that is the only place that was damaged. It's the only place my news tells me about.

And oddly, as soon as the news media have a new bit of footage from some holiday maker, they show it. They show the new footage of water rushing in and sweeping people away. And yet, when 9/11 took place, that same news media STOPPED showing any footage of 9/11 because "it might be upsetting to people."

I just don't get it. Why can I see endless footage over and over again of people being swept away in a tsunami but can't see 9/11 footage?

Of course, one big difference is the causes. The tsunami is now being used by charity organizations to collect vast sums of money. But 9/11 might have made people angry and wanting to "get even" with those who did it. As those who did it seem to be given a free pass by the media all the time, it would make sense they don't want people angry at them. The sooner they can have people "forget" the better.

When 9/11 happened, I don't recall a National Day of Mourning, as we recently had for tsunami people. Yet more Australians were killed in 9/11 than this. And more people around the globe were directly effected by 9/11.

Yes. There is a difference in the number of people who died. However, I would think that 100,000 people a DAY die in China, from various causes (about 20 years ago roughly 60,000 were being born every day so I figure all these years later we have a large number dying). So shouldn't we have a charity drive for those?

In fact, when the yearly floods kill thousands in China every year, there are no charity drives. It hardly even makes the news.

And how quickly everyone forgot about the total destruction which took place in North Korea. No charity for those people either.

Maybe Chinese and Korean people aren't worthy of charity from those do-gooder groups.

Whatever. I'm fed up of hearing tsunami stuff. And now when it comes on, I flick away. Like my client said... I am all tsunamied out.