I made Hamburger Helper, a product I don't usually keep in the house but which had been on sale at Ralphs that week. I browned the meat in a skillet and my wife Sam, who is a vegetarian, opened our kitchen window to let out the smell and pulled the curtains to get a better draft.

I got my meal but I didn't get my nap. And by about 9:30 that night Sam noticed I was falling asleep on the couch and she urged me to go to bed.

As I stood up I noticed an odd yellow glow reflected in the glass front of our china cabinet. I pointed it out to Sam. She stood up and was also transfixed by the image. And then we both rushed into our kitchen.

What we saw out the window terrified us. Only fifteen feet away, across a common driveway, we could see flames eating at walls of our neighbor's kitchen. Sam raced out our front door, screaming "Fire!" at the top of her lungs, while I dialed 911 on our cordless phone.

Sam found the wife standing in the open doorway of her condo, coughing and enveloped in clouds of acrid smoke, from which her husband suddenly appeared, carrying one of their dogs. He had burns on his hands and forehead. He handed the pup to his wife and started back into the smoke filled unit to search for their second dog, but Sam grabbed his shirt collar and held him back.

The Fire Department arrived within three minutes of my phone call. They brought ten trucks. Our condo's share a common attic and the firemen knew they would all be involved if the flames got into the ceiling and started to move.

I met a firemen in the driveway, guided him through the security gate and showed him where the flames were now reaching out the rear windows of the building. Then I got out of the way.

L.A.F.D. was professional and efficient and within three more minutes they had the fire out. In response to Sam's pleading one fireman even found the second dog, hiding under a bed on the third floor, and pulled him to safety.

We learned later that just moments before I had seen the yellow reflection our neighbors had smelled smoke.

The wife had tried to dial 911 while the husband had tried to fight the fire. But his extinguisher had been almost useless. And by then flames had short circuited their electricity, making their cordless phone completely useless.

It all happened within ten minutes, maybe less, from start to finish. Five minutes more and it would have been worse, much, much worse. Of course a smoke detector would have smelled the fire sooner. But our neighbors didn't own a smoke detector. And so we all had to rely on luck.

We were lucky I had trouble sleeping the night before, and Ralphs' had Hamburger Helper on sale, and Sam is a vegetarian, and she pulled the curtains aside, and I didn't get a nap, and Sam urged me to go to bed at just that moment, and I stood up and saw the fire's reflection. But if any one step in that odd chain of circumstances had been missing ten families would have been out of luck; homeless or worse.

Which is why I don't like to rely on luck. And you shouldn't either. Get at least one smoke detector for every floor in your house. Change the batteries twice a year. And rely on them.

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Kimit Muston is a writer living in North Hollywood. If you have any comments about his columns,
he may be contacted at inditer.com

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