fire

last night i came back from work at the drug counseling center around 10pm to the smell of BBQ in the entire house. odd. and for some reason, my throat began to swell a bit and my head to throb. stranger yet, all the doors and windows were left wide open- despite temperatures around freezing.
lilly then told me what happened.. the people who have recently rented the ground level shop had a fire (suspected arson) on the one day in weeks they havent been there building stuff. lilly was at work and heard the three firetrucks, two police cars, and an ambulance drive by and ber coworker even joked "see they are going to your apartment." yeah, they were.
aparently a passer-by had noticed the build-up of smoke in the ground level (behind the paper-covered windows) and had called the german version of 911 and then rung all the door bells and yelled up the stairs for everyone to leave the building.
thanks to this passer-by no one was hurt- but imagine it had been a few hours later, as we slept! the entire house (our apartment is directly over the fire) was full of thick gray smoke because of the slow stewing manner the fire strted,. it still smells like burnt BBQ, and we had the door to the balcony open all night. (man did i freeze- slept with my sweatshirt hood tied shut over my head..)
so a praise to God that the fire was in the day when we weren't there (the firemen had said we would have died from carbon monoxide poisoning had we not gotten out). its a bit scary staying in this apartment now, though.. especially lilly is worried what might happen with more fires and all.. its a very old building. we just need to get into our house soon!