On Fire The title has its literal meaning. A building 20 meters away from my home caught fire tonight, more exactly 3 hours ago. Back to 3 hours ago: my parents and grandparents were play majiang,

Kailin

On Fire The title has its literal meaning. A building 20 meters away from my home caught fire tonight, more exactly 3 hours ago. Back to 3 hours ago: my parents and grandparents were play majiang, one of the most traditional and inevitable activities during the Spring Festival; I was in my own room doing my own stuff. At the very beginning, I heard some sounds of things cracking and falling down, seemingly coming right from upstairs, and then sounds of people shouting and arguing. I didn't take it seriously, because I thought it could be a common fight between furious friends, which was highly possible to happen during the Festival. Not until I opened the window to check what caused the unstoppable crackings did I finally discover that it was FIRE! My family found it too at the same time. We rushed out and took an elevator down in fear that the fire in the nearby buiding might spread to ours too. The fortunate thing was that a small river was right beside my home, from which plenty of water could be pumped up; besides, the building on fire was not a residential one and the 4th floor was a tea restaurant with KTV rooms. Police and fire engines were already there and more were roaring near. For the next 2 hours, we witnessed how the fire starting from a single room swallowed the whole 4th floor and licked the 5th and 6th. We also saw how the firemen hastily tried to extinguish the willful fire using ladder truck. Some of them were even sent into the scary smoking building, as a unescapable step of putting down the fire from inside. My mom recalled another fire incident in China this January, in which case, firemen were sent into the building on fire, and then were buried...because of an unexpected collapse. I had really mixed feelings for them: worry, anxiety, symphathy and above all, respect. This incident also revealed a lot of potential threats in our community. I couldn't imagine what would happen if the river were not located at a handy distance, when several fire hydrants were gradually running out of water. Also, at the critical moments of ushering in the fire engines, several private cars had blocked the way because of illegal parking, before which I saw them almost everyday but never thought that it might cause a risk. Hope there was no casuality. What a red year!

Feb 23, 2015 3:28 PM

Corrections · 2

On Fire

The title has its literal meaning. A building 20 meters away from my home caught fire tonight, more exactly 3 hours ago.

Back to 3 hours ago: my parents and grandparents were play majiang, one of the most traditional and inevitable activities during the Spring Festival; I was in my own room doing my own stuff. At the very beginning, I heard some sounds of things cracking * and falling down, seemingly coming right from upstairs, and then sounds of people shouting and arguing. I didn't take it seriously, because I thought it could be a common fight between furious friends, which was highly possible to happen during the Festival.

Not until I opened the window to check what caused the unstoppable crackings did I finally discover that it was FIRE!

My family found it too at the same time. We rushed out and took an elevator down in fear that the fire in the nearby buiding might spread to ours too.

The fortunate thing was that a small river was right beside my home, from which plenty of water could be pumped up; besides, the building on fire was not a residential one and the 4th floor was a tea restaurant with KTV rooms.

Police and fire engines were already there and more were roaring near up. For the next 2 hours, we witnessed how the fire starting from a single room swallowed the whole 4th floor and licked the 5th and 6th. We also saw how the firemen hastily tried to extinguish the willful? fire using a ladder truck. Some of them were even sent into the scary smoking building, as a unescapable step of for putting down out the fire from inside.

My mom recalled another fire incident in China this January, in which that case, firemen were sent into the building on fire, and then were buried...because of an unexpected collapse.

I had really mixed feelings for them: worry, anxiety, symphathy and above all, respect.

This incident also revealed a lot of potential threats in our community. I couldn't imagine what would have happened if the river were not located at a handy distance, when several fire hydrants were gradually running out of water. Also, at the critical moments of ushering in the fire engines, several private cars had blocked the way because of illegal parking, before which I saw had seen before them almost everyday but never thought that it might cause a risk.

Hope there was no casuality.

What a red year!