Seems every day, often two or three times, a firetruck screams by the window. Really makes me wonder how people are managing to catch things on fire that often. That's not even counting small fires that are uneventfully extinguished by those nearby in a few seconds.
Maybe people just have lousy fire alarms that go off at so much as a cigarette?

A few months ago they tested the fire alarm in the apartment complex. At 9 AM. For half an hour.

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Originally posted by Anya

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When I was around 18 years old and still living with my dad in the trailer park, the trailer behind our caught on fire. It was a huge fire and my dad and I were worried that the fire would jump to our trailer. Just to be safe, dad took the water hose out and was spraying our trailer with water and the trailer that was on fire. The trailer that had caught on fire was a total loss.

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Was yours alright?

I recall a few other "fun" experiences with fires or near-fires:

In high school, every day for a week some kid set off the fire alarm. He didn't anticipate that people would eventually start watching from the outside and see him running from the exit right near the alarm that was pulled. Fail!

When I was maybe 8 I put some toast in the toaster, went into the other room and forgot about it. The only other person home was my father in the same room. A few minutes later, the alarm went off, and we opened the door to find the main room filled with black smoke pouring from the toaster that had somehow jammed itself. It hadn't actually ignited, so we dumped out the black crud from inside and vented the smoke out, and made something else, and kept an eye on the oven.

I got woke up by a fire alarm one night. It took a few seconds to wake up enough to figure out what it was (alarm clock took a beating, and then I pushed some buttons on the stereo, before OH SHIT). Turns out that alarm warns you of low battery by going off at 3AM.

I discovered the campus microwaves for some reason can't cook popcorn. They just burn it. Didn't set off any alarms, but the bag turned a nice crispy black every time.

I once put a fancy plate in the microwave, only to quickly discover a decorative ring around its edge was made of copper. Pretty neat sparks.

Then there was a laptop repair gone wrong. Turn it on, CD-ROM still doesn't power up. Turn it off (was in DOS, so just hit the button)... nothing happens. Yank the cord, the screen freaks out. I thought it was a pretty neat crash, until I saw smoke rising from inside. Brief panic, but pulling the battery stopped it. Later discovered a screw stuck to the power board.

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