in case you thought your 2009 started off badly

on the way home from chicagoland and the winter classic this morning (actually, now that i look at the clock, yesterday morning), i was greeted by this tragic scene:


a house two blocks from ours caught fire and was gutted (preliminary reports: a malfunctioning furnace/boiler). the entire neighborhood was fogged by the smoke.


the fire reportedly started around 11:15 a.m., and these pics were taken an hour and a half later, so you can imagine how long the fire was going and how bad it was to still be putting out this amount of smoke. note the yellow fire truck (plymouth's are red), so they apparently had to call in reinforcements to battle the blaze.


this is terrible, and please don't think i'm making light of the situation. no one was hurt (as far as we know), thankfully, but let's all hold these residents in our thoughts and prayers.