House Fire

A house down the street from us caught fire tonight. I had just come home from studying Latin for 8 friggin hours straight, I hate that subject, and shortly afterwords a fire engine raced past our house. We politely ignore it for a while, and then we go outside, like any other normal family would. There is a fire engine parked down the street from us, like three house down, and a helicopter flying overhead, using the whole spotlight thing. Its focused on a house way the heck away from out neighborhood though, which was weird. So I go closer to the house, and dad says 'Don't go too close! What if they start shooting?' I ignore him while pretending not to hear well. I am trusting God that I won't get shot, while rationalizing that if I do I won't have to take my Latin final. I really hate Latin. Somewhat acquiescing to dad's demands though, I get on top of someones mailbox. (Its one of those square limesone pillars with a box built in, it was quite comfortable.) I figure if shooting starts I can duck behind it. No shooting starts, and I learn from passerbys that it was a house fire. The ground was really wet, apparntly the firemen had been testing the water pressure at our fire hydrant. (Just a sentance for those crazy into small details, yo.) So I walk down the street in the direction of the supposed fire. All of the shiny cars were represented, tons of fire engines, police cars, an abulance, and a haz-mat car. Groups of people were situated at various 'polite' intervals on the sidewalk, where you could, of course, see nothing but shiny cars. Its one of the unintended effects of the lights is that it keeps people away by providing them something to watch without coming too close to the scene of the disturbance. I ignore them.
I eventually get to the house, and can't see too far, but deem it impolite to approach further. Damn shiny lights. Eventually I decide the whole point of coming was to see something, and so I disregard my feeling of trespassing and approach to where I can see the front of the house itself, the lawn of the hose across the street. There was a nice Chinese lady who came up to me
and started talking. She had heard the sound of what sounded like someone scraping a bicycle (?) across her driveway and had come out to investigate. What she saw was the flames jumping up really high and setting one of the trees on fire. She said that the house belonged to this couple who had two daughters, and that she wasn't entirely certain what had happened, but that she thought she had seen a barbecue pit and assumed that it had set the house on fire. Apparently the fire engines had been delayed a while, becuase the nighborhood association of some nearby houses had erected a fence through the road leading to the house, and this was not marked on any city maps. We discussed the possibility of a lawsuit. So we stared at the house for a while, and then a news camera arrived, and set up in the driveway of the house across the street. We decide to see what the camera is seeing, and move into the area next to the driveway, where the Chinese woman's son is standing. He was kind of cute. The family is also huddled in the garage. I opt not to speak to them. The roof of the house has been quite burned, and the firemen had chopped bits of the edges near the buned part away to check for embers. Some guy comes up to us and says that fire extinguishers really work, and hands one to the Chinese woman. He asks if she knows if it is a single use thing, I ask for it and tell him it says that you are supposed to throw it away after usage (its meter said it was empty). He also clarifies that it was an AC unit\heater that set the house on fire, not a BBQ pit. The area around the heater was fenced in, so it was an easy mistake to make. Plus, the smell of burning house is that of barbecue, and is almost rather tasty. (Reader response: You're creepy Bobshush!) I play with the fire extinguisher for a while, and consider asking to keep it, but decide against it. It would be a cool thing to have though. I give it back to the man, who says it was the Chinese lady's, and so I give it back to her. She says thank you and goes back to her house with her son. I leave because my toes were cold.