Fire!

The House has a gaslog fireplace. This is great for me. I love fire, to the point that I think my parents considered me mildly pyromaniacal. Anyway, it's probably a good thing that the house has a gaslog fireplace as opposed to a traditional fireplace.

When I was in high school, we rented a house that had a traditional fireplace. Every so often, we'd have a fire. Sometimes, when it rained, we'd close the flue, to keep the rain out. One time, though, we decided to start a fire after a few months of not having touched the fireplace, forgetting that the flue had been closed (we didn't close it often, just once in a while). Fortunately, we were all home, my mom, my sister, my best friend, and myself. Unfortunately, our brains weren't.

We needed kindling to start the fire. Usually, this consisted of newspaper, though I think in this instance, we may have used an old Pizza box. We had a couple smaller pieces of wood to catch fire after that, which, in turn, would start the firelogs. Everything went according to plan, except, well, that darn flue was open. We first determined something was amiss when we noticed the flames got much higher than normal. The second clue was when they started burning outside the fireplace. This was when the group lightbulb went off, and we all realized the flue was shut. Now, the stooges spring into action.

First things first - Mom starts trying to beckon the Lord to intervene, standing there repeating "Oh my God." Sister, in the meantime, determines that what you need to do is call 911, which she does, "There's a fire in our fireplace!" I, on the other hand, take decisive action and run immediately to - the smoke detector. I know that we are aware there's a fire that needs to be controlled, and what we don't need is an annoying beep reminding us. Then, because I know how to extinguish fires, I determine what we need next. Water. So I run into the kitchen and grab a glass of water. This I dart into the living room with and throw onto the flames, which laugh at my offering. My friend, though, catches on to my brilliant plan, and follows suit, though, being the competitive type, outdoes me by bringing in a bowl of water. We continue to run back and forth like Abbot and Costello, ultimately bringing the inferno under control, eventually with the help of Mom, who has figured out that a steady stream of water might be somewhat more effective, and has brought in the hose.

We survived the threat of a burning doom, thanks to the quick thinking - well, perhaps in spite of the thinking of four very calm and collected individuals.