Fire Alarm

 So I moved into the new flat on the Wednesday.

On the Sunday night/Monday morning, around 4am, I woke up to a loud ringing sound.

The fire alarm was going off.

In a bit of a panic, I grabbed my dressing gown and my bag with purse and mobile phone and ran downstairs.  Once outside, I thought I ought to phone the fire brigade - thank goodness I invested in a mobile phone at long last!

They arrived in about ten minutes.  I sat on the wall across the road and watched them (and a second fire engine which arrived a few minutes later) as they entered the building.  Checking the box on the wall with the flashing lights, they discovered that the fire alarm had been set off at the back of the Old Electric Shop, so they headed round the back.  They used a gas detector, and thermal imaging, but they couldn't find any evidence of a fire.

The Incident Commander came to me to say I'd done exactly the right thing in calling them, and if the alarm went off again, they'd break the shop door down to get in!  He added: "And you're the only survivor!"

With all that noise going on, and all the firemen wandering around, I was the only one who had come outside.  If there had been a fire, there were several other people in the flats who might not have got out.

Fortunately, the building was safe.  They re-set the alarm and sent me back to bed.

I'm told, by one of the long term residents, that the fire alarm does go off fairly regularly during the day, because of the cooking at the Old Electric Shop cafe, in which case they just come round and re-set the alarm.  It's rather more unusual for the alarm to go off in the middle of the night.