My bush was on fire! No, I don't have an STD. The bush outside my apartment was literally on fire. As I walked up to my building I got a faint whiff of fire smell. As I walked up the steps I got full on fire smell. I looked over the railing at a guy walking his dog and thought, "Is he smoking? It shouldn't smell like that." Then I notice an abundance of smoke, look over the railing, and the bush is on fire! After I said out loud "What the hell is this," the non-smoking dog walking guy turned to me and said he had called 911. 

I came upstairs, threw all my crap down, caught Sam up on the situation and went on a hunt for a fire extinguisher. Once I found one said non-smoking dog-walker said that 911 dispatch told him not to try to put it out. Fine, I don't know how to use a fire extinguisher anyway, but there went my moment of heroic glory....  

So we pet the dog a little bit and in just a minute a fire truck rolls up to save the day. Of course the head fire guy teases me for not trying to put it out but his guys go to work and there's water and foam and axes and chain saws and muddy debris everywhere. They had to put out the fire and then hack out the old tree stump it had started in. It actually looked kind of fun. 

It turned out to be fairly minor and if anything kept me from taking a 3-hour evening nap, but could smokers please just step on their butts to put them out instead of flicking them into dry vegetation?! Please?! I don't think that's a lot to ask. Especially when it's right under my bedroom window. I'm just saying....

Anyway, here are a few not terribly interesting pictures of the aftermath.