House Fire
Posted on May 30th, 2007
by 
P'SAL
P'SAL
At about 12:20 am last night we heard some bangs and shouts upstairs. Thinking it to be the usual 20-something weekday partying from the kids upstairs, we thought nothing of it, until we heard one of the girls scream "FIRE!".
We scrambled to our feet. "Get the Macs!" screamed Gwen. Casey stumbled out of his room, grabbed a half-filled fire extinguisher to fight the blaze. Gwen ran to wake the neighbors, and I called 911.
The fire trucks were there about five minutes later, four or five in total. Police came, Red Cross, concerned neighbors. Gwen sat across the street and took a photo of the house with PhotoBooth. Casey assured the EMTs his lungs were ok. Our friends upstairs huddled in blankets and laughed, and cried.
The Red Cross was amazing. The girl across the street let us hang out in her living room while the RC led us through about 2 hours of paperwork as we gave testimony to the fire inspector. The RC hooked us up with $180 for food and 3 nights at a local motel vaguely reminiscent of the one from Bottle Rocket, sans pool.
The Damage:: Well, the kids upstairs lost everything, including a piano, a clarinet, a laptop, dozens of paintings, tons of clothes, and everything else.The Plunge Artist office suffered major damage from water -- bedrooms and kitchen just got smoke. We lost two desks, a futon, desk chair, rug, lamps, stereo, backup drives, files, files, files, and more. Clothes and beds no doubt smoke-damaged.
Anyways, life is impermanent. Every day is a plunge, sometimes voluntary, sometimes not. This would be the latter. If you have a place in Boulder, let us know. Donations gratefully accepted.
Access: PublicTagged with: maxwell house, boulder
boulder
January 2008
HOLY HEAVENS!!!!! I am so sorry to hear about this but you have no idea how grateful I am that you are all safe, regardless of the many material losses (which sucks too). I am only a few blocks from you and I had no idea.
Please do let us know if there is anyway that we could help. thanks for sharing the story and of course, saving the Macs!!!
God Bless,
Nomali
OH no! That was you? I replied to your Craigslist ad, as I have a room available.
Gosh, let me know if there's anything else I can do for you.
~M
Jesus H….. does this mean we should cool things off for a while Paul? While this whole thing “blows over”? j/k
Sorry to hear it. If I was still at Highland I'd invite you to use/abuse a couch and the study. Call up Nikki or Myka or somebody. I'm SURE they'd be glad to offer you something in the way of space….an afternoon, a night, etc.
I'm so sorry to hear that! I am so grateful all of you are safe. Perhaps, in a way, this is a fresh start on a few things. As if you weren't experiencing enough “living” as it was … Blessings all ya'all. I'd offer you space if I weren't in California. My heart goes out to ya'all.
Wow. That's exciting.
Of course, I'm glad you're OK. Very glad. You guys are sweet.
Hey you are all welcome to my place…I live in Switzerland…In Montreux…Oups…I thinks it's not a fire free place, as the song “smoke on the water” originated here.
Happy none got hurt.
Love to you
SWEET JESUS, man! I’m so glad everybody’s OK. I’m so sorry that you all had to go thru that (one of my CONSTANT every now and then fears, especially when I leave town and my entire archive is on a shelf). I can’t offer any storage space for human bodies (living only, please), because my house is so small, but I can offer toward the PBR reimbursement fund, which is where I provide your household with some perfunctory, Red-Cross-approved, rehabilitation beers. I’ll give you a call soon, and see what we can’t work out.
Thanks for all the comments ya’ll, it’s great to have so many good cyberfriends!
oh man, sorry to hear about this. i'm just glad to know that you're all safe and sound. i see that healing already began.
take care and godspeed.
~C