Sometime in the wee hours, I was awoken by some sort of strange alarm. I confirmed that it wasn't coming from my apartment, and hoped that it would go away. When that proved futile, I dressed, and emerged grogilly, into the hallway.
I was greeted with a smell that was decidedly not good, and it was clear that a smoke detector was going off in an apartment across the hall. Another resident of my building was already on the scene. I tried knocking, but couldn't raise the awareness of the apatment dweller. A call to the landlord went to voicemail. I managed to wake up the buildings' maintenance fellow, but he didn't have the key to the apartment in question. Nor were his loud knocks heard by the occupant. At this point, we assumed that the apartment was empty -- surely nobody could sleep through this. So, our next call was to the fire department. They came in short order, geared up, and ready for battle:
The first fireman tried knocking on the door, louder than all previous knocks. Still, nothing.
The smoke was definitely getting stronger. Finally, in a last-ditch effort before taking an axe to the door, two fireman simultaneously knocked on the door. Surprisingly, this worked, and the occupant awoke, and unlocked the door. Apparently this gentleman had put a frozen pizza in the oven, and promptly fell asleep. So asleep that even as he pizza burned, his apartment filled with smoke, his fire alarm blared, and his door was knocked, all failed to wake him. The fireman were efficient and professional. The occupant was evacuated from the apartment, and the smoldering pizza was ejected out he window, to the sidewalk below. And just as quickly as they came, they verified that everything was safe and sound, before they were off again, to save the city from the next pizza, gone rogue. -Andy