Quite often I see fires raging swamping up homes, but mainly confined to the television news. Well in this intance is was a live hands on experience and more advice to those who have holiday homes and leave them for the best part of the year unattended. The reason I am writing this is that I nearly ended up with a fire-gutted property and to be quite honest I was extremely lucky to get away with it.
It happened a few weeks ago, where one of my neighbours was burning used toilet paper in their yards and left it unattended for just five minutes. The wind picked up and blew away one of the burning tissues into the adjoining field of tinder dry hay. This caught alight easily and the wind now took hold and swept the fire onto a direct path of destruction not only to my house but others in the neighbourhood.
It was quite a few minutes before the true realisation of the potential of this trail of wind swept fire became apparent. We were sitting watching television when we could smell smoke; we assumed that someone was barbequing peppers as that was what we did earlier that morning. It wasn’t the smoke that made us aware of the ongoing fire now gathering momentum, but the crackling that could now be heard a walnut and sliva (plum) trees were caught up in the fire. This led me to make an investigation and as I walked out into the street there was a few locals gathered watching a blazing fire sweeping towards my house, no action was taken at this point as they had already rung for the fire brigade and the fire was too fierce to tackle by hand. The trouble was that the fire brigade had to come from Yambol 37 kilometres away and that was half an hour journey!
I barged into a neighbours garden and asked for help and some brooms to try and beat some of the leading fire trail down leading to my house and we were all soon armed with home made twigged brushes trying not to get too burnt as we hit the trail. There was also fire trails now leading in four different directions, all to neighbouring houses and homes, mine was the first in line.
We managed to stem the route of the fire with only 10 metres to spare where there was long overgrown dried grass in the surrounding landscape. Another tow or three minutes and the house would have gone up in flames. Our efforts now were directed to other homes in danger as the women passed buckets of water to dampen down the area that could well have re-ignited. One of my neighbours was the president of the village hunting club. He called all his members out to help as hunters came from all directions. Without this help it would have been a hopeless situation.
The fire brigade finally arrived after we had got everything under control and just spent a couple of hours dampening down the whole burnt out area and made inquiries as to how it was started, which is why I know.
There was a great sense of community satisfaction that we managed to deal with this and if it had not been for my neighbour harvesting the field next to my house for winter hay this would not now have a house there. If is happened on a weekday there wouldn’t have been anyone around and I would not have a house. If I had not reacted to the hearing the crackling of the fire when I did I would not have a house.
People beware of overgrown dried out gardens bordering your holiday home, it only takes a second for a spark to become a raging inferno, as was the case here. I consider myself to be VERY LUCKY to still have my house thanks to the help of the local community; others might not be so lucky.
It was quite a few minutes before the true realisation of the potential of this trail of wind swept fire became apparent. We were sitting watching television when we could smell smoke; we assumed that someone was barbequing peppers as that was what we did earlier that morning. It wasn’t the smoke that made us aware of the ongoing fire now gathering momentum, but the crackling that could now be heard a walnut and sliva (plum) trees were caught up in the fire. This led me to make an investigation and as I walked out into the street there was a few locals gathered watching a blazing fire sweeping towards my house, no action was taken at this point as they had already rung for the fire brigade and the fire was too fierce to tackle by hand. The trouble was that the fire brigade had to come from Yambol 37 kilometres away and that was half an hour journey!I barged into a neighbours garden and asked for help and some brooms to try and beat some of the leading fire trail down leading to my house and we were all soon armed with home made twigged brushes trying not to get too burnt as we hit the trail. There was also fire trails now leading in four different directions, all to neighbouring houses and homes, mine was the first in line.
We managed to stem the route of the fire with only 10 metres to spare where there was long overgrown dried grass in the surrounding landscape. Another tow or three minutes and the house would have gone up in flames. Our efforts now were directed to other homes in danger as the women passed buckets of water to dampen down the area that could well have re-ignited. One of my neighbours was the president of the village hunting club. He called all his members out to help as hunters came from all directions. Without this help it would have been a hopeless situation.
The fire brigade finally arrived after we had got everything under control and just spent a couple of hours dampening down the whole burnt out area and made inquiries as to how it was started, which is why I know.There was a great sense of community satisfaction that we managed to deal with this and if it had not been for my neighbour harvesting the field next to my house for winter hay this would not now have a house there. If is happened on a weekday there wouldn’t have been anyone around and I would not have a house. If I had not reacted to the hearing the crackling of the fire when I did I would not have a house.
People beware of overgrown dried out gardens bordering your holiday home, it only takes a second for a spark to become a raging inferno, as was the case here. I consider myself to be VERY LUCKY to still have my house thanks to the help of the local community; others might not be so lucky.
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Wow a luck escape Martin! It did make me laugh a little when I read of the source of the fire though. Thais tend to do the same here i.e. burn anything-mostly the problem they cause is the smell since they put everything in plastic bags.
ReplyDeleteMartin your story is one of a lucky escape for you and your neighbours thanks to your quick response. Your story also shows the respect you hold in your community by the fact that everyone responded to your actions and didn't think twice about assisting you. I guess you really are one of them now and that's great news. If your barbequed peppers smell like that then they must taste like cr.....
ReplyDeleteWow. Lucky for you.
ReplyDeleteOpen burning is a nightmare here, esp when it is causing such bad haze.
Good to hear that all ends well, Martin ! Man, that must hv been quite a scare !
ReplyDeleteIt seems that bush fires r happening far too often the last few years. Just when we were thinking of relocating to Spain, California or Australia for our retirement (still years to come), news came abt the drought, scarcity of water n the bush fires. The recent fires in Athens is a reminder that global warning is all too real n the world at large must do their part in getting it under control b4 it's too late !
The raging flames of a forest fire like I see on tv afflicting California & Australia, for example, make me very thankful that my only brush with fire was in college: the rooming house where I stayed had a fire in the room next to mine - I had the presence of mind to close the room door before leaving - others didn't, so even though I was closer than others to the source, my stuff was less damaged/sooty/smokey than say the people down the hall.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad your recent potential tragedy was averted! Thank goodness for helpful neighbours and members of the community (even tho it's a neighbor who started it ... why would someone burn toilet paper, anyway?)
Hi Martin,
ReplyDeleteI'm so very happy and relieved to hear that everything turned out OK and you and Galia didn't lose your place! What a great thing that everyone came together to help out. But mostly I'm happy you and Galia were able to be safe and your home is safe!
Have a great day,
Sher :0)
How well equipped are the firefighters in Bulgaria
ReplyDeleteThey are not at all well equipped and just have basic firengines that ore over 20 years old. Money of course would solve that. All the firefighters have hearts of godl though.
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