In flames

At about 1:30 pm today I received two emails from friends who saw a great pillar of smoke rising up from Fremont, asking if I knew about the fire and if it was close to my place. One of them sent a photo taken from the 4th floor of the Hutch. An ominous view, to say the least.

After a quick check with the local news I realized that yes, the blazing mayhem was in fact taking place in a factory building very close to my place. I called my landlord who hadn't heard about the matter but promised to check things out and get back to me with info. As the Seattle Times updated their reports I realized that the fire wasn't just very close, it was very very close. Close as in half a block away from my house. Yikes!

Luckily, the 100-ish firefighters who battled the flames managed to gain control of the situation a couple of hours later, and as far as I know no one was hurt. When I got home from work the street outside my building was closed in all directions and Seattle City Light had cut the power to the entire block as a precautionary measure.

I went out for a run and when I came back the power outage was still ongoing, so I lit the few candles I had and prepared myself for an evening in the dark. Imagine my relief when the fridge suddenly started buzzing as I was halfway through my stretching routine. No cold water-showering in a pitch black bathroom! Whew.

All's well that ends well, and thank God, it wasn't the chocolate factory... Now that would've been a real tragedy.