Spooky, this just arrived in my inbox this morning....
My friend emailed me about this guy at her work who had sent an email around the office about his night...
I love the grammer and spelling, this guy is a doctor as well!

Subject: buring down the house...

Hi all
Had an experience last night that I'd like to share. My next door neighbour fell asleep on the couch with a cigerette and burnt down the house! Everyone was safe :-)
Once I was aware of anything going on (breaking glass), I called the fire brigade (already on the way), ran and asked if everyone was out (yes said the gang of "ribberneckers" watching!), and then ran back to my house and used my pathetic garden hose to squirt water on my house and fence that are very close to the neighbours [afterwards the "rubberneckers" told me the flames were shooting across the gap between our houses till it was about 1 metre away. Yikes!]. My hose couldn't even reach the neighbours! :-(

Anyway, after the "event" was over, I was talking to my nextdoor neighbour. She heard them screaming and ran around to their house, there are flames in the lounge, mum and dad are screaming over "where's the cat" and "get the goldfish". She grabbed their 1 year old baby out of the room, ran out the door and that got the parents moving! Now from what I've assertained, no fire alarms, no fire extinguisher, and an abundance of panic!! [e.g. the goldfish!? what about your kid!]. In the few minutes I sprayed water I saw that house (an old wooden one) burn like you wouldn't believe! So fast and so hot! And through a rather disturbed sleep last night I kept thinking: panic almost killed the lot of them. So for me, please:
1. Check or get some smoke detectors. At the worst, it'll get you out the door faster! At the best, you might have time to contain the fire.
2. If you have kids, so through a fire drill. If my neighbours personal drill to each other had been "grab the kid and run" and (sorry) forget the pets (or, then think about the pets!), then they might have reacted faster. I hate to think what might have happened had my neighbour not run in, or the people had both been asleep (the wife smelt smoke and got up to check!).

So thats it. A $10 smoke detector at least will allow you more time to panic, calm down, then react! Looking out my bedroom window at the burnt out shell only metres from my house makes me glad that no one died. This is my first experience of seeing a house fire (and hopefully my last!).

Just some friendly advice from someone who witnessed how people can panic in a crisis, and how grave the consequences might have been!

ciao
Jarrod
(CrazyKiwi, Tue 2 Mar 2004, 23:17, Reply)