Fire, fire, burning bright...

What an unexpected adventure.

It all started with a banging on my door. I opened, to be greeted by a frantic girl from flat 3 (the opposite flat) who announced somewhat hurriedly that she'd set fire to her kitchen. Joy was in the corridor too (I believe the girl had knocked on all our flat's doors hoping to get anyone who was in), so we went over to take a look.

I don't remember the exact sequence of events which followed (think I went back to my room to grab my keycard), but it involved Joy and Charlotte (above-mentioned girl) trying to extinguish the fire (which wasn't that big, but still rather substantial) with a small extinguisher. It wasn't really working, so I went back to get a bigger one.



At this time another guy (from flat 3) had joined us, and we tried to use the new extinguisher without much success. I figured that there was a catch of some sort preventing us from using it, but took awhile to locate and pull it out. At last I was able to extinguish the fire with a stream of carbon dioxide, and Chris (the guy) had the soundness of mind to turn off the stoves after that.



It wasn't quite the end of the story, though. The fire brigade came and the origins of the fire were revealed - Charlotte had left a plastic kettle on the hob and somehow it'd melted (probably switched on the wrong hob). What was alarming was that the kitchen had apparently been filled with toxic plastic fumes, which the four of us would have had plenty of time to breathe in. What was even more alarming was that the fumes were described like "two or three mouthfuls could knock you out", and we probably had a dosage way higher than that (albeit before the plastic really melted).



We were feeling fine, but the fire brigade recommended we go down to the hospital for a check, just in case. Which we did. Sure enough, there was nothing to worry about - we were fine.

So I got to know two of my blockmates, and I got to put out a fire, and nothing really terrible happened to me (Flat 3's kitchen is temporarily without a stove, though, so I can't say the same for them). A huge chunk of my day was gone, though, but I suppose it was an interesting experience nonetheless. Can't say that I'd have got any work done otherwise, anyway =P