A Fire Last Night At the Nearby Hardware Store

Tragedy struck when a fire broke out last night at the nearby hardware store along the main road in our area. I was in my room sipping coffee and listening to some death metal, when I heard my Mom shouting upstairs. She then ran down the stairs and called me out of my room. That was when I heard the sirens, and I knew right away that there was a fire nearby.

I then drank the rest of my coffee, bottoms up, and dashed out of my room and out of the house. The fire was visible from our street, and I knew right away that it was one of the establishments along the main road, near the main gate of our village.

After checking the hose in the garage and telling Mom to get ready with it, just in case, I quickly dashed back in and raced up to the third floor to check things out up there. Our rooftop balcony on the third floor is our laundry area where we also have another hose, as well as the 9-foot high water tank.

As I raced up the stairs, I mentally recalled all of the shops or stores I knew were right in that short strip of business establishments along the main road. Then I heard one of our neighbors on the street below shout to someone that it was the hardware store that was burning.

There were a lot of clothes on the clotheslines, and other flammable materials lying around, so I knew I had to stay up there in case some flying burning debris landed up there. I could hear our neighbors next door also preparing for the same thing.

Water hose ready, and clothes brought in to safety, that was when I remembered to bring out my phone and take some pictures. The fire broke out around 7:10, and checking the time stamps of my photos, it had been burning for about 20 minutes when I started taking pictures.

All the flammable materials sold in a typical hardware store were what caused the fire to grow quickly, and I hoped and prayed that nothing burning would be sent flying our way. We had already had a house burn down when I was a young boy, back in 1977, and it was a memory that struck my Mom with great fear. She was palpitating the whole time last night, and getting really panicky.

She was alone at the time our house burned down, while Dad was at work, and my sisters and I were in school. I can only imagine the horror she witnessed, being alone, and trying to grab out to safety whatever she could. That's why she always turns into a nervous wreck whenever there's a fire nearby.

And this isn't the first time that a fire broke out here in our area. In fact, it's the second one that's happened in such close proximity to us. The first one was last month, March 5, at the laundromat on the corner of our street. It is almost the same distance from this one last night, about 50 meters from our apartment.

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