What A Day!

Sian (my colleague) and I were on our usual lunchtime walks today when I smelled something and when we turned a street corner, she pointed to a fire on couch on the front verandah of a house. It was only a small fire on one of the cushions on the couch so we ran to the house and started knocking on the windows and rang the doorbell to alert the occupant. But by the time the young occupant answered the door, the flames engulfed the entire couch. We told him to get buckets of water to douse the fire and then ran to get the fire brigade cos we didn't have our mobiles on us.

But when we arrive at the fire brigade, the lady wanted the exact address. We told her the house is on the main street and she can tell by the smoke rising from the house and she asked us if it was this side of the road or the opposite side. At that time, we were frantic cos we won't sure if the young teenager was okay, and he needed back-up. We just told her to quickly get the brigade and ran back to the office to grab our camera and notebook to cover the story.

Another colleague, Steve, came along with us when we returned to the house. By this time, almost half of the house was on fire and the fire was travelling to the house next door. Fortunately, the fire brigade came shortly after and doused the flames in time. Only the tree in the neighbour's house was thoroughly burnt.

We felt sorry for the guy and his father though. They have lost alot of their personal belongings. We're just glad he's alright.

It's scary how windy today has been, which we believe is the reason the fire just travelled so quickly, beyond our control.

Incidentally, it's a total fire ban day too, which means "No fires can be lit or be allowed to remain alight in the open air", and Sian and I don't usually cover that route. We only changed our walking route because magpies were swooping at us. We are glad we were there and we like to think we had alerted the teenager to a danger he might not otherwise have known. And I believe God meant us to be there.