on the morning of september 19, at ~3:45 am i was awoken by my electricity briefly going out. it was out for a few seconds, then it briefly came back on. i heard a loud bang, like a transformer exploding, and the electricity went out again. it was completely dark in my bedroom, and the lights outside my window were off too, but through the blinds i could see orange light flickering and i knew it was a fire. i opened my blinds and saw flames rising above the treetops and roofs in my view. i thought the building directly across from me was on fire. my car was parked next to that building, so i assumed i wouldn't be able to drive away if i needed to.
lucy had been asleep beside me but she was awake now and restless, she knew something was going on. i grabbed her, picked her up, took her to the living room, put her down, and put her leash on her. i grabbed my pursed & slipped on a hoodie and my shoes, picked up lucy again, and we opened my front door and went outside.
i climbed the set of stairs to parking lot level and there were huge fiery embers falling all around me. i took my phone out and started recording.
when i figured out that the fire was a little ways away and we weren't in immediate danger (and my building wasn't on fire), i went back inside to grab a few things. i pulled my bass off the wall & unplugged it from my pedal board, and i grabbed my bullet journal off the desk and put it in my purse. i was still carrying lucy because she was scared & wanted to be carried, so i couldn't hold anything else. i went out to my car and put the bass in the backseat. a lot of my neighbors were coming out of their apartments with backpacks, getting in their cars and leaving. there was a small group gathered nearby so lucy and i went and talked to them a bit.
there were still huge embers falling around us and i was worried they would light our roof or nearby trees on fire, especially because the fire department was still not in our complex. i had heard sirens when i woke up but they were on the street outside of our complex, trying to put out the fire at the construction site. i don't think they realized yet that there were occupied apartments on fire behind the construction site.
i went back into my apartment one more time and started packing a suitcase with clothes. it felt silly to be "saving" my cheap clothes that i really don't care a lot about but i knew i'd be glad to have them if my apartment burned down. i put the suitcase by the door and took a quick look around and told myself i'd be alright if everything i was looking at burned. i wanted to save some of lucy's toys but i had no idea which is her favorite (she plays with all of them) and i didn't feel qualified to choose a favorite for her, so i didn't grab any. this was my only flawed logic of the morning. i should have grabbed a couple toys.
the fire department arrived about 35 minutes after i was woken up. lucy and i walked closer to the fire and recorded some video and watched the firemen tear down a fence with a chainsaw. every few minutes there would be a loud boom, and then a black plume of smoke rising through the grey, when a car gas tank blew up. i kept trying to get a picture of the moon through the smoke because it was so eerily beautiful but every time i pointed my camera up, the clouds were covering the moon.
as the sun began to rise and the smoke began to clear, we could see that the two apartment buildings were nearly destroyed, but the rest of us in the area were very very lucky.
