There was a fire in the building this morning. The northwest first floor apartment. I heard pounding on the front door—sounded like our tenant who "parties"— and smelled toxic smoke. Looked out the window and there he was. A man with a dog walked by and said to our tenant: "If you have a phone, you better call 9-1-1 because that building is on fire!" So I grabbed my robe and my phone and ran downstairs and out the door past the drunk man. Smoke on the street and out the window. Inside, through the windows of the first-floor fire doors, smoke obscured all hallway light. I dialed. The operator answered. I started the spiel. She cut me off: "We already know about that one."

I could hear no fire alarm from the building—no screeching of some individual unit beacon or the hearty buildingwide bell. Others live on that hallway, I thought. Do they know? I should get them out! But the smoke was too thick to enter.

Then the sirens. What does it mean to have some-number-alarm fire? We got four engines. The fire fighters poured from the vessels and streamed toward the front door with hoses unrolling.

It's funny what you think about in adrenaline-fueled instances. I think I learned (again) about needing to maintain order. Yes, in that moment, all I could think is that if I didn't prop open the door they were going to break it down and what a mess that would be. To our drunk friend: Is your door unlocked? He didn't know. So I said: Did you come out from your apartment just now or are you coming home? He said he was home. He said it in that voice like I was an idiot for not knowing he was home. Whatever. At least his door was unlocked.

The fire fighters rushed through.

By now, some residents were huddled on the corner wondering what was going on. We watched silently as extinguishers, hoses, and men stuffed through the front door. And we waited, like that, until we saw them recede in the loose gait of having finished the job.

So there were my neighbors in brightly colored and somewhat childish outfits of night dress. One of them had a towel, because that's what he thought to grab on the way out. Each told individual stories of waking to that wretched smell. Our dear tenant's neighbor said she went outside and around the corner of the building to see the drunken man standing in his smoke-filled window. She yelled a warning to get out or put out the fire or something. He yelled back, "I know!" in that same tone he'd given me. With that, we let a chuckle show our relief that we, and our homes, were safe.

We had all feared this would happen. Neighbor comes home sometimes like this, comes home so intoxicated that you can't talk to him and he can't walk or talk or do anything but respond belligerently to your attempts to help, and then he slumps in the hallway until he comes to his senses. But it's only sometimes, so what can you do? Sometimes, a weird smell comes from his apartment and we've wondered about what you could cook that would smell like that. But it's only sometimes. He has lived in this building longer than anyone else (as if that matters). The point is, he hadn't burned down the building yet or hurt anyone or done anything that you could really put a finger on and say, You have to go. But now? Well, he'll go.

Random, heretofore unknown, neighbors roused by the sirens and light approached our little huddle for news. We gave what we knew, which wasn't much. The firefighters mill around, but not one of them stopped to talk to us. I flagged down one and learned that it was a pot left on the stove. Flames crept up the wall behind the stove, but no other damage, just the smoke. They used water to put it out. But, the man said, it wasn't clear what was in the pot so he had called the fire marshall to investigate.

By this time, our building owner had arrived. Shaken and shocked-looking. It's his first fire I found out later.

The fire marshall says it was your basic pot-left-on-the-stove scenario. He said the smoke is the problem now. Probably everything in the apartment is a loss due to smoke saturation. Neighbors most proximate will have to have their clothes dry cleaned but can otherwise air out. In my apartment, two floors up, the residual smoke makes my nose run and eyes burn.

From the outside, there's a broken kitchen window and a streak of soot where the smoke fled from the break. Inside, long sooty footprints lead to the trouble, and smoke on the first floor blackened all the cobwebs. Otherwise, you can't tell anything happened.

When the fire team cleaned up, they deposited in the front yard a melted microwave and bits of wood they had chipped from the wall. These sit on a sheet of black plastic between the street and sidewalk, a satire of the ubiquitous yard sales of the season.

Just a few minutes ago a car drove off with our neighbor. Owner says we have to wait for neighbor to sober up to sort out the situation. Neighbor's not so well: still drunk and wracked with guilt. He's in shock; as he sobers, he begins to feel the loss. He has always been unapproachable in this state and now is utterly isolated because of it.

For my part, I have to leave for a little bit. The residual smoke aggravates my allergies and makes my head hurt.

Turns out, an engine clipped a car parked on the street. It's one of the innumerable gold Toyota Camry 4-door sedans. The front bumper tore right off like a fingernail from its bed and hangs flimsy there waiting to be ripped the rest of the way. The car was shoved up onto the curb and its front right wheel cleaved completely from the rim, which rests canted and bare in its own divot. There's a note written on a yellow sheet of paper from a legal pad. It says, "E9 contacted your vehicle. OBVIOUS damage. Call xxx-xxx-xxxx. Reference fire at ... "