Let me preface this by saying that I am currently typing this out not but an hour after it happened, still coming down from the adrenaline high. I want to record this moment in as much detail as possible while it is still fresh and memorable:

Emily tiptoed around me, carrying two bowls from the dishwasher, intent on nestling them away in the cupboard to my right. I sifted through our dirty dishes, trying to determine what needed to be hand washed and what would bow down to the might of water-jet and detergent. Having cleared the clean dishes, Emily bounced into the living room to put on another episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia to keep me entertained as I worked. I slotted a few dishes into the wire rack, determined to tetris away every dish, when a loud pounding snapped me out of my head-space and focused my attention on the door. Not a moment later, the fire alarm started blaring in our unit.

I leapt to the door, swinging it open to see a short woman, soaking wet and hyperventilating, "THERE'S A FIRE! WHERE IS YOUR EXTINGUISHER!?" My heart skipped a beat, forgetting where it was, "EMILY WHERE IS TH---." The woman at the door pushed her way in and darted for the sink. She pulled out the extinguished from below and thrust it into my arms. "DO YOU KNOW HOW TO USE THIS!?" Having never held our extinguisher before, I grabbed it and searched frantically over the mechanism at the top. I thought for a moment while I darted outside and over to the neighbors' door, "They always have a pin to pull... then they work, right??" At the top was a vibrant orange plastic safety clip that I quickly snapped off as I made it to their door.

The woman's roommate swung the door open and coughed deeply and raspy, motioning for me to follow. Smoke billowed out of the door. With the adrenaline kicking in, I mindlessly followed, hoping the fire hadn't grown out of control. Once through the threshold, I couldn't see but 3 feet in front of my face. I was following the shadowy figure ahead of me on shape alone.

Rounding the corner, the flames punched through the thick smoke. Piercingly visible, yet a solid 8 feet away, the fire licked and danced upwards from a large wok on the stove top. Molten plastic dripped down from the microwave above as the flames raced upwards, threatening to set the cupboards ablaze. I raised the extinguisher to eye level, trying to discern how to activate it. It was in this moment I was painfully aware how much smoke and water filled the air. My glasses were splattered with soot-drops and my clothing was already soaked. Finding the lever, I pointed the nozzle at the stove and sprayed. As the jet splattered forward, I directed the jet in a cross pattern, covering the full counter tops and then dousing the microwave and down the the stove. I let off the lever to observe the effect and saw no flame. For good measure, I blasted the stove top a second time.

Feeling confident it was out, I blinked a few time to clear the water from me face and assess my surroundings. "Is it really out? What else do we need to do? Is everyone safe? Is this the only fire? Wh--," I began to cough uncontrollably. Despite the fire being out, smoke still hung in the air in thick blankets. My body protested me staying any longer and I stumbled back to the front door, my bare feet sloshing through the blackened water below and hacking terribly.

Stepping through the threshold again returned me to clean enough air to breath and I inhaled deeply, coughing further and harder. I set down the extinguisher and looked up to see four women, soaked and clearly in shock. Emily's voice cut through the alarms as she hung up her phone, "THE FIRE DEPARTMENT IS ON THE WAY!" I darted into our apartment, looking for something heavy enough to prop their unit's door open. I wanted to get as much smoke out of the place before the firefighters arrived. By the time I got back outside with a big laundry detergent bottle, Emily was handing out towels to the soaking women. An employee for our apartment complex came barreling down the hall wearing a police vest telling everyone to back up. He shut their door and was adamant that no one else go inside, "Wait for the fire department. They are trained to handle this."

I dipped back into our unit and stripped off my wet clothes for some dry ones. When I returned back outside, the fire department was already on the scene. They opened the door and water came flooding out into the hallway. Dropping massive hoses, pry-bars, and axes to the floor, they dashed inside looking for anything needing immediate attention. One man drilled the tenants with questions of pets, other occupants, etc. Over the course of the next 30 minutes, fire fighters worked tirelessly to prevent water damage to their unit. Armed with massive squeegees, they swept the water from the unit while the employees from the apartment complex tried to shut off the sprinklers. In this rush to resolve the water problem, I pulled out my phone and snapped a few pictures of firemen running in.

With the water shut off and the flood swept out, the fire fighters hoisted out the stove and microwave, setting them down outside the unit. "Is this where the fire was?" they asked the oldest tenant. "Yeah, we were cooking dinner..." The fireman looked at the charred stove and microwave, "I think it's done." The 15 of us standing outside erupted in laughter. The older woman gestured at the oven, "There's some mac and cheese in there too!" A fire fighter bent down and opened the stove, "this looks like it's still good!!"

I'm now sitting at my desk, shortly after showering. I type this listening to the piercing, high-frequency whine of the fire alarm that the apartment complex has yet to shut off. I hope the alarm is silenced by the time I want to go to bed.

This entire experience has made me thankful for elegant and simple fire extinguisher design, such that a man in a smoky room could deduce how to use it. It has made me thankful (thus far) that there is no damage to my unit. Finally, it's made me realize that I very likely don't have enough coverage in my renters insurance to replace all of my belongings in the event of a fire. That last one I'll be rectifying tomorrow.

That was terrifying.