This is a long story and for the sake of telling it smoothly we need to name some people, so here they are ... Neighbor A lives next door, Neighbor B and her daughter (both are handicapped) live across the way, and Neighbor C isn't a neighbor, but helps Neighbor B and her daughter.
So the other day my wonderful husband decided I could use to get some sleep and took Our Little Man Cub for a nice long walk while I took a nap. Well, about an hour in to my nap I was awoken by a loud (I mean LOUD!!!) noise. I jumped out of bed, looked around for the baby, remembered the baby was with dad, grabbed my phone and ran out the door. As I stepped out the door I smelled and saw a ton of smoke. In the hallway Neighbor A was yelling something, but I couldn't understand so I left the building.
Once out of the building I called my husband to see were he was. He said he was down the street and he saw the fire department heading in the direction of our apartment complex. At this point I realized that Neighbor B and her daughter hadn't made an appearance, so I ran back upstairs to find them. Luckily Neighbor A and C were helping them out!! I helped them finish getting down the stairs and then was shocked to see not one, but three fire trucks pull up .. I mean within 10 minutes of the alarm going off there were firemen with axes running up the stairwell, A huge latter going up to the roof (with a fireman on it), and a paramedic truck!!!
Well I was standing to the side trying to stay out of the way when Neighbor C filled me in on what had happened. Neighbor C went to get the mail and when she came back the whole hallway was filled with smoke. So she knocked on Neighbor B's door to find out what was going on. Neighbor B called the fire department and pulled the fire alarm while Neighbor C ran down the hallway feeling all the doors to see which one was hot. When she got to (hummm... let call this person dumb lady) dumb ladies door it was open with smoke pouring out of it. She yelled in to see if there was anybody in there and dumb lady answered that she was there and everything was fine!!! Fine ... there is smoke everywhere?!?!?! Well we didn't trust dumb lady, so we evacuated the building.
As it turns out dumb lady had put a dish towel on the stove, forgot about it, lite it on fire, and then took a long time to put it out. So by the time she got it out and opened up her door to air it out there was a lot of smoke. So everything ended up being fine, but since its such a big complex the fire department like to start out aggressive just in case. And since I'm a dork I thought we need some photographic evidence of my little adventure :)