Too Close To Home

I glanced out the front window tonight and saw a big glowing cloud of smoke peppered with red-hot ashes. We ran outside to see a house one street away on fire. It backs up to a house across the street from us, about three doors down.

It shocked me. It was so close! Just a few houses away! It could easily have been our house. It hit really close to home.

It hadn't been going too long, because we heard firetrucks and police just arriving. We walked around the corner to see which house it was (a few ward members live over there, yikes!) and within minutes the glow and sparks subsided and only smoke billowed skyward. It seemed that it was just the back of the house, and I wondered if something bad had happened with a barbecue grill.

On the way back to our house, we overheard someone saying something about a propane tank exploding.

I've seen things happen to my neighbors before. A chimney struck by lightening, a drug bust, a street light hit by lightening (that was close, too!), and once we tipped police off to a meth lab across the street. But that all happened when I still lived with my parents. It feels very different now that I'm the parent and homeowner!

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Here are some pictures we took the next morning. The picture doesn't show it, but they broke out the windows. It looks worse than we thought.