Fire in Paa Mul (its more like a book! talk about all the details!!)

Fire in PaaMul

On Friday morning at the insane hour of 2:30 am our air conditioner turned off which means the power went out in the Palapa. I woke Chad and told him he needed to shut down the computer before the u.p.s (the thing you plug the computer into that holds some power in it) quit working.

When this happens (and it happens regularly) I always go out and look around outside to see if everything looks ok and if it’s a breaker in our Palapa or the whole park is out.
Everything was dead quiet and it was completely dark so I figured they would have the power up when they could and thought Id go back to bed. Just as I lay down I heard rustling in the Palapa and thought the boys must have woken up to flip the breaker because their fans had gone off.
When I went out the kids, said, ¨Mom someone is yelling fire¨ I quickly went into the bodega to tell Chad and helped him get some clothes and pointed to where I could now see smoke. He grabbed the fire extinguisher and ran out the door.
The fire seemed fairly small from what I could see so I was very hopeful that they would be able to get it out before it spread too far.

Jamin, my sweet boy instantly thought of our Father in Heaven and asked if he could say a prayer for the safety of everyone and that the damage would be minimal.
We all quickly stood together arms folded while the desires of his heart were uttered though his tender words.

The kids and I stood watching from our Palapa when Chad ran back and gave us instructions. He told us that one of the Guy wires had broken and that an electrical line was on the roof making the fire.
He said if we could see flames really high off that Palapa we were to get the computers, some clothes, and put them in the van and drive out of the park.

Since it didn’t seem too bad yet and it was across the road I told the kids to stay put while I went to see what was going on. This is when I could see the flames were much bigger than I thought and I heard someone yelling to get all the red fire extinguishers you could find because the others were not working.
I immediately started to run and yell red fire extinguishers!! I ran right for Jamie and Kathy’s Palapa since they were only 5 or so down to see if they were awake.
I opened the door to their recamera and could see fairly well where Kathy was sleeping. I called Kathy in a loud whisper about 4 times. I didn’t want to alarm the kids so I went over and called her closer. Still nothing…I then had to shake her a few times and finally in a big daze she got up when I told her, ¨ fire! come on!!!!¨
Talk about trying to wake the dead!!
She still seemed completely out of it so I grabbed her hand and headed out for the door. Finally she came to when she saw the smoke.
Since it was a few Palapa´s down I said I’m not sure what you want to do yet and left to go make sure I could see people up in all the other palapa´s in the back row and tell them we needed red fire extinguishers.
Shortly after this time people where honking their horns and people where coming from everywhere.
This all happened with in a space of about 10 minutes.
I ran back to our Palapa to check on the kids and we could see the flames were getting bigger.
We started to evacuate.
I had seen Lyda and her son in the van as I was walking back to the Palapa and she told me one year they had got trapped in the park when there was a fire because of all the fire trucks etc. and she didn’t want that to happen again.

It was so ironic because when Jamin had read ¨The Friend¨ that past Sunday (a magazine our Church puts out for kids) it had a story in it of a family who had a Family Home Evening Emergency drill where they had 5 min to pack up what they needed and get into the car.
And we were planning to do it but it was the St. Patrick’s Day dance so we went to that instead. But it was so good because we had the thought of the drill in our heads for the week before this happened.
We also had just had our insurance agent come and drop off our insurance papers and we paid him the money.

Keltie had already got the computers unhooked and we started hauling things to the van.
I was amazed at how smoothly it all went. The kids had all their clothes in containers neatly stacked in the van, The Cats in their kennel, computers cameras, purse, a case of water bottles and snacks.
We turned around for one last look at our home wondering if we would see it again. Then realized all that was left was ¨Stuff¨…. things we could replace and hopped in the van and drove out of the park to the store by the highway.
When we got up to the store Veronica was there with her boys and Lyda was there with her son Caster. Veronica’s Palapa was only two over from the fire so she was anxious to hear what was happening.
We told them that the fire had not spread to any other Palapa’s.
We were so lucky there had been hardly any wind and we had a full moon so we had all the natural light you could have.
When I looked up where they had parked they were under the electrical wires that ran along the highway, I pointed this out to them and decided to park across the highway. They thought it should be ok but I didn’t want to risk it.
When we got to the other side of the highway one of the park electricians Gill and the electrical company from playa were trying to unhook the wire that ran into Paa Mul off the main.
When we crossed the street the kids and I started to get worried and wondered where Chad was. Since our van and things were out of harms way we decided to walk back down the road to see what was going on.
Veronica asked us if we could still get into her Palapa if we wouldn’t mind grabbing her some shoes. She was trying to hurry so fast she didn’t have time to get any. She also wanted us to grab her a few other things she had forgotten.

The kids and I raced down the road. The fire looked like it was still contained to the one Palapa and smoke filled the air.
I ran into Veronica’s Palapa and grabbed the stuff she needed with Kathy.
The fire trucks from Puerto Ventura and Playa were now spraying and ripping Whano off the roof to make sure there was nothing hot left underneath.

I started asking if anyone had seen Chad …finally someone told me they had seen him about 10 min ago…good… He’s still alive!

Later I found out that he had been on top of the roof of the Palapa that was on fire with a couple of other guys with our extinguishers. When they tried to put out the fire they, got shocked by the high tension electric cable. That was why they wanted all the red fire extinguishers since they could use them without getting shocked and keep the fire from spreading. When the red extinguishers were running out Chad ran to Pepe’s house yelled at Amy(his wife) from the gate until she came out and got her to call the electric company to turn off the power. Then went back to the Palapa and they started spraying down the palapa´s on either side of the burning one whenever the fire tried to spread. Once the electricity got shut of they went to it using a hose and buckets of water out of the tinaco( a storage container of water) to keep the fire from spreading at the back and sides while the bombero´s(Firemen) worked from the front.
Soon it looked like the fire was gone and we were all out of danger.
Soon Chad came out from behind the burnt Palapa,soaking wet and covered with black ash.
With a prayer of thankfulness, Sabie and Chad walked back to the road to get the van so he could try and relax. When he got back it took us 3 minutes to unload everything, Chad had a shower and we all tried to clam down and go back to sleep. Chad was asleep on two minutes. He must have had an adrenalin crash.
The girls were still wound up and decided to clean up their room. It was funny because I had been hounding Keltie to get her room cleaned up all week and she was just ignoring me….later she said it would have been easier to pack her stuff if she hadn’t had it all over the floor. Hopefully she’ll remember that. Life in the Caribbean is a little different than in Canada…..being prepared is vital but is so worth the risk.
Thankfully no one was seriously hurt. One of the guys on the roof with Chad suffered a few burns to his hands and the people whose Palapa it was had already packed everything up ready to head for home the next day. They also had insurance.
As we speak Pepe( the owner) has dug a trench for a water line down the road out the back of our Palapa with a nozzle to attach to a hose they have here.
He has planned to extend it all the way across PaaMul. Also the electrical wires will have a plastic cover that goes over the wires or they will have the lines moved.
Pepe is going to get a team of guys to learn how to use all the pumps and hoses and will have someone around that knows how to use the equipment here all the time.
Chad has already talked to him about being on the team. So we are feeling very safe.