Hey Mer,
That must have been a shocker, to be sipping umbrella drinks on the beach in Mexico, and get a call that one of your places was burning. Or not. After having had two of your structures go totally incendio, it’s not like it’s something new for you. Ross said that you took it pretty calmly after hearing that no one was hurt and said something like, “It wouldn’t be North Beach if something on my property wasn’t on fire.” If circumstances had been just a little different the Spare Girl cabin could have easily burned right to the ground, just like the bakery and the sauna. You can thank luck and some quick action on the part of the couple staying there that it stayed under control. They were about to leave to go into town and Bill decided to have a cup of coffee before they headed out. That’s when he noticed a popping, crackling sound coming from overhead. They went outside to see smoke pouring out from under the shakes on the roof. He managed to find three fire extinguishers, pulling a couple from the other cabins to fight the flames and since they didn’t have a cell phone, Ashley ran down to the road to get help.
Dr. Ken (you know, who blows the massive bubbles?) happened to be driving by in search of Ian and had his phone with him. But since there’s no 911 service on-island it took a couple of phone calls until he could find someone who knew the number of the volunteer fire department. He went up to the cabin to find Bill on the second floor swinging an axe through the ceiling, trying to get at the fire behind it. Apparently, the fire department response time was impressively quick. Karen, Ian’s girlfriend, was in town at the Ground when the alarm went off. (Being from off-island she didn’t know that the air raid-like siren was a muster call for the volunteer fire department and thought at first that it was a tsunami alert.) She said that some people in the café were already speculating that it might be your place on fire.
I was outside in the rain, nailing shingles onto my outhouse, when I heard, then saw, the fire engine wail past. You know how back in the city, you kind of ignore sirens? Since there are only a few places past me I was taking notice. I had a bad feeling about your cabin. I had just been there an hour earlier, looking for Ian and Karen, and they’d left me a note saying that they’d be back soon. I dropped my hammer and jumped in the car. When I got there the fire engine was parked at the top of the hill by your cabin but no one was around and there were no obvious flames.
By the time, I got to the Spare Girl cabin the firefighters already had ladders up and were dousing the roof and pulling off smoldering shakes. Bill and Ashley looked shaken but fine and Dr. Ken was looking on strumming his blue ukulele.
Ross showed up pretty soon afterward. He’d been working on his place with Ian when they heard the fire truck go past. He’d left Ian working, who had joked, “Please come back and get me if it’s Mer’s cabin on fire.”
Being Rescue Ross, when he arrived he got us mobilized into doing something useful. Water was pouring in through the hole in the roof, which was now the size of a Duran Duran poster (or Heather Locklear, Iron Maiden, whatever, you know what I mean) and dripping down into the first floor. Bill knew where you had a massive pile of tarps and plastic tote bins sitting in the bushes behind your workshop. We laid out tarps and bins and bowls to catch as much of the water as possible. Then Nate showed up. He’d been working on tiling at his place when he heard the siren go by and realized that if it was going past him it must be someone he knew.
We started discussion of how best to cover the hole in the roof and realized that you didn’t have any ladders on your property long enough to get up that high. So we asked the firemen if we could use theirs while it was up. They were accommodating but had jobs to get back to so they couldn’t hang around for long. Ross went back to his place to get plastic sheeting.
One of the firefighters had attended when your bakery burned down. He’d said that he’d had to refill the pumper truck three times fighting that fire.
The firemen were done sooner than later though, so we rooted around in the tarp pile and came back with tarps, plastic and a sheet of chloroplast (that hole would make a delightful skylight). The firemen were making moves to go so I just grabbed whatever was handy, which happened to be a massive blue tarp that you could have wrapped a car in and got up the ladder with it. Nate and Bill found me a hammer and nails and strapping and handed it through the hole. I hacked the excess tarp off with one of the firemen’s utility knives. Not the prettiest job but we were in a hurry. The firemen left (actually, ‘firepeople’ is more accurate. One of the volunteers was a girl I took the Med A3 course with last week for Coastguard Auxiliary training).
Randy showed up. He’d been working on someone’s place in Tow Town and heard the fire truck go past. He had a long ladder in his truck so he got it out to shore up the patch job. Ross came back with a roll of poly and Ian, who was looking super stressed out. He hadn’t believed Ross when Ross first came back and told him. Ian said that if he was joking, it wasn’t funny. Later, Ian described how he’d felt incredibly guilty for something happening on his watch, even if it had been out of his control.
Randy pulled the stovepipe and nailed down some more strapping. Ross and Ian made an assessment from inside of the damage and probable cause. It looked like it started with the wood around the stovepipe. We took some pictures for you.
Nate went to go get an extra-long ladder from his place so that further repairs could be made later. Bill and Ashley found their cat, collected their possessions together and moved into the Road House. Ian swept out the stovepipes of all the buildings on the land as a preventative measure. If the Mapper had been on-island I’m sure that he would have already been planning how to set up the Tow Town firefighting gear on permanent standby at your place.
Standing around later, it occurred to me that here were five guys who dropped what they were doing and showed up on your property without being called, when they heard something that might have been trouble your way. Then they stuck around to help sort things out. Not bad for a single mom at the end of the road, eh, Mer?
xo, Masa
(p.s. Nate, Randy, Ian and I’m sure many other guys have lived in that cabin. It may have been the ‘Spare Girl’ cabin when Paul owned the land, but now that it’s yours, ‘Spare Boy’ seems more accurate.)