I was dead tired from the gym and was nodding off to sleep around 130pm last Sat when I heard a neighbour frantically banging on another neighbour’s door. It was enough to tear my aching lazy ass from bed to look out the window, where I immediately noticed the inordinate amount of smoke and ashes!!! flying around. Suddenly my body didn’t ache anymore, and after checking from the backside of our house my fears were confirmed.
A fire at the open lots behind us, a large Sta. Lucia Realty housing development.
These pictures don’t do justice really, and were taken by my 14 year old niece as an afterthought (amidst pics of our dog and her goofing around). That pitiful garden house was our only defense, along with sad attempts by our neighbours to hurl pails of water towards it. I was using it mostly to get the surrounding area wet.
There was a time when the flames were roaring 10 feet away from me, and I could feel the heat and choking smoke and ashes rush to my face. Our neighbour two doors away had it worse, almost scorching a tree inside his lot which, if it had caught fire, would definitely had spread towards his roof and likely beyond. It didn’t matter if the fire had green fresh looking grass or trees in front of it, everything pretty much burst into flames the moment the fire got to it.
The saving grace, really, was that the wind started to blow North East (I think), away from our houses. That really was the key. If it had kept on going towards us we only had a concrete wall, a green garden hose and a tankful of water to keep us safe. No thanks to panicking neighbours which I pretty much ignored much to their irritation I think. Truth is, I was focused on the fire, and didn’t wanna deal with them. They came and went in droves to ‘try to help’, which essentially means talking my ear off about how shocked they were, and how whoever started this should go to jail while asking me if I knew who it was (heck if I knew). Fine all and good, but can we deal with the fire please?
By 4-ish everything was normal. Firemen came and doused what needed to be doused. I tried to sleep but the adrenaline and dreams of fire consuming everything kept me half awake. I told my nephew to wake me up in case things went crazy again and I kept imagining every sound I heard was him knocking, or that it was so bad he couldn’t even knock. Screwy.
Postscript:
Anyway, to get back to normalcy, I resolved to start my own fire, via a 3 step process. First,
Second:
Third:
:) Whew.
BTW, Mia, my niece who took those pics, loved the chicken and had 2 pieces. This from a girl who only eats toasted bread with butter (seriously), and nothing else, so getting her to eat anything is a miracle. Recipe:, 1 drumstick per person sliced in several areas (for the insides to cook through). Marinade in mixed Kikkoman, sugar and ketchup for 3 hours. Cook 20 minutes slowly around charcoal. No I didn’t get the charcoal from the fire.