Saturday, April 19, 2008

Fire Down Below

(Ibis arrived safely last night, we stopped by a bar to watch some hockey, then went to bed early.)

This morning I was checking emails when a loud boom rang out across the neighborhood. That's not uncommon in the land of fireworks and guns for all, but this was much louder than normal. I looked towards the window in time to see birds flying every which way. Then a plume of smoke caught my eye.

I decided I wasn't in danger of getting shot and approached the window. Fire engulfed a yard on the next block and was quickly climbing the trees. People were stopped in the street, staring at the burning garbage. (At least I assume that's what it was. There is garbage pick-up here but people still burn a lot.)

Despite its growing size, I figured they had it under control and returned to my email. A few minutes later a police siren drew me back to the window. This neighborhood is rougher than most but sirens are still a rare sound. No one seemed to know what to do. The flames covered nearly 20 square feet of the yard and black smoke filled the air as more people gathered to watch.

I returned, again, to my email until I heard a fire truck approaching. This must be serious! The sirens were clearly those of a fire truck but the vehicle that arrived was a pipa, a large truck that delivers water. Within minutes the flames were gone and white smoke replaced the black.

By the time Ibis returned from his run all had returned to normal. Thank god we're in a concrete building - it'd take a lot for the fire to get to us.

8 comments:

political wife said...

Whoa! That's scary! Glad you guys were/are okay. That's odd how long it took for the firetruck to get there. I guess here in the States, we're used to a much quicker response to smoke and flames.

colbymarshall said...

Whoa! Glad you've escaped unscathed.

Anonymous said...

Oh man, that is one thing that blows me away about Mexico. If the mountains catch on fire there, they just shrug and say, it'll go out eventually. I've also notice that in Sonora, that is the way they keep the roadside weeds at bay, they either bring in cattle or torch it.

Melanie Hooyenga said...

V - no kidding. I've gotten so used to seeing random fires that I didn't think anything of this one till the police showed up.

I don't think my intended tone came across in my post. The, "wow, these people are idiots" tone. Oh well. ;)

Anonymous said...

Another thing I found out is that in Mexico, each state has ONE helicopter. So much for random water drops and boraid bombers, lol.

Melanie Hooyenga said...

We have at least one right here in Zihua! It kept flying past our building yesterday morning, so much so that I wondered if it had anything to do with the fire. It's from the military base in town.

Spy Scribbler said...

Wow! Your life is very exciting, you know that?

Melanie Hooyenga said...

SS - If you say so. Things are just different here. A lot that I took for granted before doesn't even exist and now there's a whole new set of rules.