[Coco] An exciting night!

[Andrew]

Hey all, thought I'd mention this...

Last night my neighbor's house caught on fire.

My wife was up taking care of my mother (she has dementia) at around 
2:30 am, and she smelled "burning" - she told me later that it smelled 
exactly like when a relay in our A/C unit burned out. She looked around, 
but couldn't find anything burning, but woke me up anyhow. We looked 
around some more, and looking outside we could see a lot of smoke, so we 
called 911, then bundled my mother up, got the dog on a leash, and 
wheeled her out of the house.

Our other neighbors ran by saying "the house next door is on fire - is 
anybody in there?" - and sure enough, it was. Fortunately, nobody was 
living in the house (we know the owners, they were called by other 
neighbors). The fire departments (yep, multiple - we had like 10 engines 
and two departments show up - we live on the border between Phoenix and 
Glendale, so both cities always show up, whether it is fire or police) 
quickly arrived and put the fire out. It was close to 4am by the time it 
was 100 percent confirmed out and they coiled up their hoses.

I have a few pictures on my website:

	http://www.phoenixgarage.org/show_article/86

I guess I had an adrenaline rush or something; I didn't get back to 
sleep for a while, and ended up calling out from work because I was too 
tired to drive or think. A crew came this morning (didn't help with my 
getting more rest) and fenced/boarded up the house.

I hope they had insurance - while they were only using the house for 
storage, it still is an ugly thing to have happen...

-- Andrew L. Ayers, Glendale, Arizona