These are some pictures of the fire that yesterday destroyed two buildings with eight apartments in the complex where I live, Ashwood Apartments. Even though it started around 6 p.m. just in front of my block, I did not realize what it was happening until half an hour later more or less, because we are getting so used to the sound of alarms and work machines that I did not give them importance.

I was in the bathroom, ready to take a shower, when I heard the sirens of the Fire Department. The station is practically in front of Ashwood, and there is an alarm almost everyday, so I did not think anything special about it and I took my shower. When I went out of the bathroom I entered in my room, which has the window oriented to the back side, and I could saw a couple of people walking in the yard. There are not paths to walk there, it was strange, and I remembered we had a warning a month ago about robberies in our zone, so I was thinking more in that possibility than in a fire.

At the same time I was hearing truck noises, but I though they were those that are working in a new parking for the complex since the last week, almost in front of my apartment too. Finally I went to the living room, and I saw through the window of the balcony a big amount of water going up! I went out and I could see everything. Many trucks of the Fire Department trying to extinguish the fire, polices, the maintenance stuff, journalists, photographers, neighboors.

It made me a huge impression, more thinking about the people who was living there, what could have happen to them, how close I was..., and how my natural system to detect danger was so dead! Maybe all these modern signs to warn of danger are too much and are killing my natural sense to detect it. Or they might have become too similar to others that come from our urban environment, and it is time to make a change.