Fire! Fire! Fire!

Last night I came back home around 11.30pm and had shower before watching a replay of Michael Jackson's memorial.

In between the show I went to the toilet. I smelled a faint smell of smoke but at that time I thought it was the strong smell from the Dettol shower gel I was using and thus went back to my room to proceed with MJ's memorial service.

Fell asleep and got up to went to the loo again at 2am. This time there was definitely a stronger smoke smell but thought my nose was playing tricks on me. Woke flatmate up to reconfirm the smell and checked that our flat wasnt on fire. True enough it wasnt.

Then, we looked out at living room and saw the block adjacent to ours burning in flames. Trying to stay calm, we quickly put on warmer clothes and treasure hunt for our passports and wallets.

After we got out of our flat, rain was pouring hard on us and the main road has been blocked by a countless number of ambulances, police cars, fire trucks and a whole lot of other emergency services supporters.

We asked a bystander what was going on and he said that a pub by the corner caught fire two hours ago. Two hours?! I happily took a shower, watched MJ's memorial service and even went to sleep while the pub was burning away. We stood a few feet away and watched and that was all we could do.

I was watching the scene. More fire trucks arriving, ambulances whisking people onto it and speeding away, firemen putting on their full gears, people in bathrobes and slippers, people being rescued from their windows.

Then it just hit me that the pub was right opposite Shell. Yes, a petrol station. And then I started to panic and watched the scene in horror. A few minutes of standing dumb-struck, the police told us to back away but we had no where to go. It was raining hard and we needed to pee (cant help it as nature calls whenever it wants to =S).

Oddly enough, our block was not evacuated and we could still go back to our flats and we decided to take a quick toilet trip. Back in the flat, we could hear loud hammering, people shouting and torch lights shining randomly behind our courtyard.

We had a good view of the fire and we could see that it was just one side of the flat that was burning. It would take a strong wind, a huge fire and a long time (enough notice for us to make a cuppa tea before getting to safety) for the fire to come our at our direction.

We saw the whole process of the firemen getting to the rear of the building by breaking walls and windows to try and put out the fire from the back of the building. Then the fire got worse. The pub was on the ground floor but flats above were catching fire. Things seem to have gotten worst and we could see thick black clouds of smoke.

I watched the behind the scenes from my living room and was praying that the fire would quickly be put off and that no one got hurt. At around 4am, the fire had been successfully put off (from my view anyway) and sleep was calling for me.

I went to sleep and got up every hour to check that the fire was still out. Only smoke was coming out from the building and the firemen were still around. Around 10am I was woken up by loud sirens again. Looked out of my room window and saw an ambulance leave. There were still a number of fire trucks, police cars, etc hanging around. Looked like they never left and never stopped what they were doing.

After lunch, we decided to go take a look outside. There were still police on duty and they were not letting anyone get near the scene. Did they stand there the whole night and day? The entire main road was still blocked. This place was never this quiet. Lidl, the supermarket next to Shell is closed until further notice as the entire car park has been taken over by every rescue force. I saw two news truck with their big satellite dish.

As I am typing this at 5 ish in the evening, there are lesser fire trucks, police cars, ambulances, etc around but the firemen are still investigating the source of the fire. I can still see them at work.

You can see some pictures here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8146504.stm

and the news here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8146354.stm

Got to go rest as it has been a long day. Sorry for the chaotic blog entry.

Signing off,

MY