HFCS: effika’s blog

Last night Jay rolled into bed around 5:30am, waking me.

“What’s with all the bright lights on the shades?” I asked.

“Oh, the dumpster caught fire, but the firemen have mostly taken care of it,” he said.

I jumped out of bed to see 6-8 firemen standing around the dumpster and a small firetruck in the parking lot with its lights on, but no flames. Seeing as how I had missed all the excitment I went back to sleep. Jay had missed most of it himself– the firetruck came without sirens, and until the dryer had stopped he hadn’t noticed the shsh’ing of their hoses.

This afternoon I took pictures of the aftermath.

The ashes on the ground are the remains of an armchair left by the side of the dumpster, and a loveseat that was balanced inside. It and the other five pieces of furniture discarded by my neighbors who moved one floor down took up all the room in the dumpster and stuck out precariously over the edge. I went to throw some trash into the dumpster that evening and I had to lob the bag just right to balance it on top the loveseat.

You can also see in this picture that the residents of my complex are not fazed by the fire, and have continued to throw their trash away. This sort of perseverance is good, as we will probably only get a new dumpster if this one somehow fails to stand up.

Here’s one side! Reminds you of when a pot’s left on the stove too long, doesn’t it?

The other side.

What’s left of the lid. The lid had been broken for several months now, so this doesn’t really change anything.

A shot of the back. That fire must have burned for a long time.

Debris!

More debris! See the spring and upholstery left by the fire?

The inside! It appears the firemen put most of the springs from the furniture back inside the dumpster.

You can see some charred upholstery in this shot. Look under the cardboard box!

Luckily the fire was constrained to the dumpster. I don’t know any specifics of the fire, other than that it had be going in earnest after 3:45am (when I went to bed) and was over by 5:30am.

This complex has problems with things catching fire; a while ago a chimney wasn’t properly cleaned before use, leading to a whole unit catching fire. No shots of that, however, as that was before I lived here.

Anybody else have any fire stories to share?