My neighbors are not bothered by fire ...

I leave the apartment at almost exactly 8 this morning. As I loop through the parking lot I notice a little smoke from the island down below in the common parking area.

Not being a morning person, I am often not exceptionally observant about things that happen when the time reads AM, but the smoke does not seem like the steam that sometimes rises after a damp morning when the sun rises.

No, there is a black spot, the kidney shape of a swimming pool and maybe a foot wide and two feet long where the smoke is emanating from. There is also a smoldering cigarette butt. I park.

The shovel in my carport is handy so I start to shovel the charcoal to the pavement. A couple scoops in and I realize that under the visible bark there is some charring as well. It is clear that it is smoldering a couple inches below where there is hard pan.

Carp!

911 is dialed.

No, I tell the dispatcher, there are not visible flames. She agrees that a truck should come out anyway. I keep scooping and make a circle 3 to 4 feet in diameter. I am not aware of a hose that can reach to where I am scooping.

I call my boss and leave a, "I might be late to work this morning, I am putting out a fire in my parking lot," message. It was true, but now I can never use that excuse again.

A couple minutes later the fire truck arrives, thankfully not with sirens blaring ... there were not visible flames after all and I would not want to disturb my neighbors.

Actually, I wish I had disturbed the neighbors. Two different neighbors drove through while I was shoveling smoldering charcoal from our parking lot and neither seemed worried ... or helpful. A third neighbor actually walked through while the fireman were hosing down the area - just in case since the smoldering could have hit a bush and then blown up a couple cars - and did not even slow down to really look at what was happening. (Thankfully, my landlord is bothered by this and expressed thanks at me handling it.) The Lake Ballinger island fire recently was a smoldering in the ground one like this.

And, then I made it to work on time anyways ...