After The Fire

Charred times.

Another example of what our energy supplier Pepco calls a “winter storm event” knocked out our power for four days last week. A letter in today’s Washington Post thanks Pepco for adding to its customers’ sense of certainty by ensuring that lengthy power outages have become as much of a sure thing as death and taxes. Another indirect consequence was that our house almost burnt down. Had the fine fire-fighting men of Montgomery County not been quick to jump out of bed at 3am on Saturday, it’s hard to see how the side of our house (see picture) would have avoided  more serious damage.

It seems the neighbours’ tool shed caught fire thanks to an undetected crack in their chimney, through which heat and/or flames must have escaped as they burnt wood to keep warm. The neighbours woke up when the flames reached up to their bedroom window. The Indie-Pop family had abandoned the neighbourhood in search of a warmer, electricity-driven house, so we were summoned by cell phone at 4am to come and enjoy the last stages of the drama. We suffered no internal damage, but became a local tourist attraction for 48 hours as people we’d never met before were flushed out of their houses to come and ask, “What happened?” Maybe we’ll see them again next Halloween.