Update - 5 alarm fire
Sep. 20th, 2007 10:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lordshipmayhemThe fire is not quite out - it got into some tires, and there's nothing quite so stubborn as a tire fire, but it's under control and should burn itself out soon. ("Soon" = "sometime over the weekend")
GO Transit still has two lines down: Lakeshore East and Stouffville. Maybe they'll be back up in time for morning rush-hour, no promises. Not going to matter much for some commuters taking those lines, as they will be spending the night in hotel and motel rooms in downtown Toronto - or friends' places, if they're lucky. I predict the clothing stores had a run on shirts and blouses today.
The cause is "still under investigation", but is considered suspicious. They think there might just be a connection between the fire and the two teens who ran up and threw a couple of Molotov cocktails into the building seconds before the fire started.
***
This area still smells sharply of fire, with quite the metallic tang to the air. Smell is the most powerful trigger to memory, and this brought back one from my callow youth.
I was about 8 at the time, and as I came home from school I was met with friends saying I'd "missed all the excitement!" It seems the Oshawa Fire Department was at my house. It wasn't a social call.
Mom had done the unforgivable for a firefighter's wife. She'd had a dryer fire. The contents of the dryer? About four or five of Dad's work shirts...
Dad gets a call at the hall he's working at that his house is on fire. (Before you ask, he was at a hall covering another part of Oshawa, so he didn't get to go to his own fire.) He thinks they're kidding, at first, then is in high panic mode. Fortunately, my uncle was there - he ran out to the trailer, grabbed the fire extinguisher and unloaded the contents into the dryer. The pros made quick work of the rest - no house damage, aside from this metallic, smoky smell that lingered for days.
And the only other casualty? Dad's pride. His co-workers found it far too tempting to tease him about a firefighter's wife trying to burn his house down. Fortunately they stopped teasing him after about 8 or 9 months.
GO Transit still has two lines down: Lakeshore East and Stouffville. Maybe they'll be back up in time for morning rush-hour, no promises. Not going to matter much for some commuters taking those lines, as they will be spending the night in hotel and motel rooms in downtown Toronto - or friends' places, if they're lucky. I predict the clothing stores had a run on shirts and blouses today.
The cause is "still under investigation", but is considered suspicious. They think there might just be a connection between the fire and the two teens who ran up and threw a couple of Molotov cocktails into the building seconds before the fire started.
***
This area still smells sharply of fire, with quite the metallic tang to the air. Smell is the most powerful trigger to memory, and this brought back one from my callow youth.
I was about 8 at the time, and as I came home from school I was met with friends saying I'd "missed all the excitement!" It seems the Oshawa Fire Department was at my house. It wasn't a social call.
Mom had done the unforgivable for a firefighter's wife. She'd had a dryer fire. The contents of the dryer? About four or five of Dad's work shirts...
Dad gets a call at the hall he's working at that his house is on fire. (Before you ask, he was at a hall covering another part of Oshawa, so he didn't get to go to his own fire.) He thinks they're kidding, at first, then is in high panic mode. Fortunately, my uncle was there - he ran out to the trailer, grabbed the fire extinguisher and unloaded the contents into the dryer. The pros made quick work of the rest - no house damage, aside from this metallic, smoky smell that lingered for days.
And the only other casualty? Dad's pride. His co-workers found it far too tempting to tease him about a firefighter's wife trying to burn his house down. Fortunately they stopped teasing him after about 8 or 9 months.