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Honolulu Lite
THE country's all fired up. Literally. From Florida to California, fires are raging, destroying home and forest. One giant blaze even threatened the Grand Canyon, though how you burn up a big hole in the ground I don't know. Fires whip up
searing memoriesForget a national missile defense system. How about a national automatic sprinkler system?
Hawaii's entering the fire season, too. We haven't had much rain, which means those lovely golden slopes from Makapuu to Waianae are prime kindling.
I've got fire on the brain, partly because you can't turn on television without seeing an entire state aflame and partly because there's been two recent house fires within spitting distance of my own hacienda. Not that spit would have helped. I used to walk by one of the houses on my frequent trudges around Lilipuna Road. It was a cute little wooden affair, sort of "Early Kaneohe." There was a ton of junk piled up on the front porch. And a cage with a couple of love birds who chattered at you as you passed by.
I got home from work one day a few weeks ago and the house was nothing but a burned-out shell. No one was injured but the birds were toast. Now when I walk by the blackened ruin, I still hear the birds' ghostly jabber.
I've been through a house fire and it's something you never forget. The sheer fear of waking up in the middle of the night to a house full of smoke haunts you forever, a primal smell of scorched habitation.
My brothers and I were jarred out of our sleep by my dad who rushed us clad only in our underwear into the cold Nebraska night. Tell the neighbor to call for help, he yelled. We shivered on the neighbor's porch while the idiot just stood there, suspecting some sort of prank. Precious minutes were lost to the blaze. My father accosted the neighbor after the fire had been doused. "The next time my boys are standing on your stoop in their underwear at three in the morning telling you a house is on fire, call the damn fire department," he said, as if the same scenario would repeat itself in the future. I was taking no chances. I think I went to bed dressed in boots, snow coat and ear muffs for about a month.
IT turned out a cigarette discarded into a kitchen rubbish can by a parent I will not name was the culprit. Maybe the surgeon general should add another warning on cigarette packs: "Don't throw lit cigarettes in kitchen trash cans when your kids are sleeping nearby."
Then just last week, I put a couple of corn tortillas into a little broiler/toaster oven and pushed down the toast lever. Nature called so I made a quick run to the bathroom. When I returned, the oven was in flames, the kitchen filled with smoke. My own love bird "Sweety" was going berserk, flailing in her cage. I managed to get the fire out. There was no serious damage done except to the toaster. And my nerves. Had my business in the bathroom been of a more, uh, time-consuming nature, things could have been very bad. I then noticed we have smoke alarms in every room in the house EXCEPT the kitchen. How stupid is that?
So, I guess the message of this column is: fire bad, humans stupid. Take some time to check your house. Install smoke alarms. EVERYWHERE. Have an evacuation plan. Make sure your neighbors aren't idiots.
I think I'll buy one of those fire-proof safes. One big enough to climb into.
Charles Memminger, winner of
National Society of Newspaper Columnists
awards in 1994 and 1992, writes "Honolulu Lite"
Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Write to him at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, 96802
or send E-mail to charley@nomayo.com or
71224.113@compuserve.com.
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