Blazing Furnace

Expecting the Worst
Hanging out in my room last night, I suddenly heard a thump and little pop sound, followed by silence.  I didn't think Roommate Megan was moving anything heavy, but thought I'd check, fearing that someone had broken into the apartment or a surrounding one (ah, adjusting expectations in B'more).  Once I stepped into the empty living room, however, I saw that no such break-ins had occurred.  Then I smelled smoke.  Then I saw smoke coming from the heater closet. Then I saw a spark and rushed into Megan's room.

Two Public Health Experts One Mini Fire
There were a couple of minutes of chaos as we tried to figure out what to do, tried to get a closer look at the heater then jump away when we saw flames, and tried to see if we had a fire extinguisher anywhere (we don't; we should).  We then decided that calling 911 seemed like the right thing to do even though the fire was most probably out.  Right after Megan hung up, we panicked.  Not because of the fire.  But because we were both about to go to bed and not wearing presentable clothes.  She changed.  I borrowed a sweatshirt from her and kept the flowery white PJ half shorts because the heater was right outside my door and I didn't want to walk by another possible spark.

B'more's Best
The firefighters arrived in minutes.  They were everything one could expect them to be.  Calm, reassuring, and mostly seemed like they knew what they were doing.  We were right to call them, they said (I wonder if they tell everyone that).  They smelled the apartment and saw the blackened water heater.  "Yup, that's a fire all right."  Then they just chilled a little bit since everything was under control.  Somebody turned off the hot water.  Somebody decided they should leave a tag on the water heater.  Someone located a tag in his helmet.  Nobody had a pen.  Except for me.  I always have pens.

Super Confused Super
The next step was calling the emergency maintenance number, which put me in touch with Brian the Maintenance Manager.  "Wasn't I just in your apartment this afternoon?"  "Yes, yes, you fixed a drain.  Thank you!"  "I didn't touch your water heater."  "I know you didn't.  But it still burned up."  "Can you explain this again?  You're saying it caught on fire?"  "Yes, sir, it burst into flames." "I just don't understand.  This has never happened before."  "It's the first time for me, too.  But it happened."  "Well, do you want me to-- right now, I don't have a --"  "You should come first thing tomorrow morning."  "OK.  That's good.  Because it's 11 o'clock now."  Who knew I had a talent for talking supers through difficult situations?  I did.