Aftermath of last Sunday's fire
Last Sunday evening, I was getting ready for bed when I heard loud cracking and
banging noises. My first thought was:
What
on earth is Bert doing in the kitchen? Slamming doors and crashing
about again?
But the noise wasn’t coming from inside the house. Could it be
fireworks over at Galgorm Manor again? It sounded much closer than
that.
When I stepped outside, I realised just how close it really was.
The house next door was ablaze. Flames shot twenty feet into the air, windows cracked, and roof tiles exploded.
Thankfully, it was a calm night, so there was little danger of embers
drifting over to our place.
I called the fire brigade, and they arrived within twenty minutes.
It was close to 2 a.m. before the fire was finally under control.
It’s not the first fire on that site.
Nineteen years ago the garage went on fire. I believe that one was
accidental – someone careless with something flammable, though I
cannot be certain. The garage contained a quantity of paint tins and
a gas tank so there was plenty of fuel
for that fire. Like last week, the fire brigade got here within
twenty minutes and spent two hours dousing the flames.
The aftermath of the 2006 fire
In Bert’s lifetime, there have been three
incidents of fire at that site. The first was the most tragic. It would have been sometime in the 1960s.
Clint was at primary school, and he remembers it clearly - no surprise,
as it was
his grandmother who died in that fire.
It was a shocking thing. All that remained
of her were her lower legs and feet, still in her carpet slippers.
She must have fallen into or near an
open fire. There was no damage to the structure of the building, just
a greasy, sooty deposit all over the walls and windows.
When I told that story to my friend Vee
after this latest fire, she went a bit pale. Said she felt the hairs
on the back of her neck rise. She’s not usually one for
superstition, but that unnerved her. Both
Vee and Bert said that the site must be cursed.
According to
the Fire Service, last Sunday’s fire
was set deliberately. The
police are looking for an arsonist but it is highly unlikely they’ll
ever find anyone.