fire!

I'm going to only post about the fire tonight. It's late and I'm getting tired.

On Sunday, May 18 about 10 p.m. the apartments across the street from us caught fire. It was horrific as far as I'm concered! I HATE fire! I'm so afraid I can hardly light a match or start the grill and am so grateful for my candle warmer so that I no longer have to come near an open flame. The fire was intense and a woman was forced to jump from the 2nd story balcony to escape. Her fiance re-entered the apartment for an unknown reason and lost his life in the devasting fire.

My dear husband sat with the woman until paramedics took her to Newton Medical for treatment. He is so calm and collected in times of crisis. I on the other hand was a total wreck! I tripped in our driveway running back to check on Caden and scraped by ankle pretty badly. It's still healing nearly 3 weeks later. Our front yard was blocked off with crime scene tape and our house smelled like a campfire for a few days. Doug was interviewd last week by the fire chief and ATF, a PI, and an attorney have all been out to investigate and photograph the damage for various reasons. A flower memorial was erected in the yard under the balcony where the woman jumped and just this week the number of gawkers driving down our dead-end street has dropped off. Caden, thankfully, slept throught the entire event, even though he sleeps under a window facing the street where the lights and sirens of the police cars and fire trucks couldn't be missed. I really am thankful he was able to sleep through it all because I know he would have been so scared and had nightmares. It would have taken Doug and me a long time to explain everything to him so he could understand. The next morning he was more interested in the crime scene tape than the damage from the fire. Now everytime we go outside he points across the street and says, "Look it's not white anymore cause it burned." Innocence, such a blessing!

If you are curious and would like to read more about the fire, check out the links below:

Newton Kansan article

Kake News article #1

Kake News article #2