May sound silly to you, but believe it or not, this actually happened to me this morning.
On Saturday my younger brother was watching the store. He called me in the afternoon and said, "Um, this light is making a lot of noise, and it really smells like something is burning. What do I do?" I told him to turn the lights off. It was about 4:15 on a Saturday which meant we wouldn't even be there all weekend, so there wasn't really any use calling the landlord.
Well, when I came in this morning I forgot about it. It made a funny buzzing noise, but it stopped shortly after it began. After a while it started to smell like burnt plastic or something, so I turned the lights off and called my dad. I also called the landlord, but he wasn't picking up his cell phone.
My dad came in and examined the place and couldn't figure out what was wrong. He stayed for about 10 minutes and couldn't find the problem. He told me to leave the lights on, but to check for smoke frequently and to call him if there was a problem.
About half an hour later a customer came in. I explained why it smelled the way it did, (how embarrasing,) and that we were trying to find the problem. Well, while she was still in the store, I look up and see all this smoke pouring out of one of the ballasts(sp?).
I freaked out. Those of you who know me can probably see me panicking. I honestly think I ran around in a circle trying to figure out what to do. Now, you have to understand that we own a yarn store. I don't know if you've ever seen wool burn, but I have. Let me tell ya, it burns quick. I had these flashes of the store burning down going through my mind. I could see the shelves burning with all the wool... Oh man. All these thoughts were running through my head. "Should I call the fire department? Should I shut the lights off? Should I call my dad?" Of course, the answer to all of these questions probably should have been yes, but in my panicky state I couldn't decide what to do first. (One would think I would run for the fire extinquisher, right? Yeah, I'm so dumb.)
I finally found the presence of mind to turn the lights off. I came back out and the fire was sort of extinguishing itself, so I watched it burn out and decided not to call the fire department. I called my dad who said he would come down immediately.
The customer who was in the store at the time said that she would stay with me until dad came, God bless her. It was a tremendous comfort not to be alone.
When my dad finally arrived he called the landlord. We tried to get a hold of him for about an hour or so. We never did. Dad said, "I'm going to try to track him down in person." A few minutes later he came back. He was pretty upset. He said, "Um, the landlord is in Europe for the next month." Oooookaaaay. Uh, well that's a problem, now isn't it? He called the electricity people. (Don't you love my technical names for things? I suppose I should say 'Electrician')
See, when we tried to turn the lights back on it still got super hot, not to mention that the lights didn't even come on in the front half of the store. I think that the black wire that took most of the blaze was important.
Dad left and went back to work. He said that the electricians would be there in about an hour. They came and fixed it, and everything's fine. Yay electricity guys!!!'
Now all I have to deal with is this horrendous smell that's hanging about. We went and bought a very powerful candle, and it's taking care of a lot of the smell, thank goodness.
Between the smoke, coming off of the adrenaline rush, and the fact that I forgot to bring my lunch today, I almost passed out.
Sooooo, if you happen to see smoke coming out of your ceiling, don't panic like I did! Stay calm. Turn the lights off, run for the fire extinquisher, and tell someone to call 911 if you have someone available. DON'T RUN IN CIRCLES!!! This doesn't accomplish that much to fight the blaze. Make sure to call an electrician to make sure that there are no weird wires that might cause fires. Don't drink and drive, and don't run with scissors!
Your Friendly Firegirl,
Anna
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