City of Miami Beach Fire Department – Fire Station 2

I recently experienced an explosion and electrical fire at my home. As I was folding laundry on my couch this past Monday, I heard a sudden, yet quiet «pow» and suddenly, my condo was drowning in white smoke. I started to become dizzy and nauseous at the thought that this fire would spread and burn me and all my possessions, and to make matters worse, this was happening during the holidays, which is already a stressful time. I could barely see through my kitchen due to the heavy smoke swirling around, and after speaking to my mother, she decided to call the fire department, unknown to me. After we hung up, maybe 1 – 2 minutes later, she called me and admitted that the fire department was on its way. I laughed about the sirens I heard from my balcony, thinking she was joking and told her they must be coming for me, and I was right.
I am not exaggerating when I say that within less than 5 minutes of her placing that call, three firefighters showed up, pounding on my door. I live about 4 blocks away from the fire station, yet their response time was incredibly fast. I embarrassingly moved the chair that was propping open my front door, asked forgiveness over my somewhat overbearing mother, and explained my smoky issue. They smelled the smoke and saw it permeating through the place, despite the fact I had opened the sliding glass doors of the balcony, and left the door to the hallway open. They calmed me down, told me my home would not be burning down and that they understood that living alone like I do, such an incident can be even more frightening.
Slowly, they checked the appliances in my home, such as my microwave oven (since that seemed to be the area where I heard the noise and saw the smoke), the dishwasher, the oven and stove, the refrigerator, Christmas lights, bedroom lights, pretty much all the lamps and lights in my home. Nothing. I insisted that I thought the smoke was coming from the air conditioning vents, but they dismissed me because air conditioning systems don’t explode, they said. I was adamant I heard the noise, but since they could not find a root cause, they said perhaps the upstairs neighbor had a leak and water fell on an electrical cord running up over my condo ceiling and caused a small short fuse. None of my breakers had been tripped so they said not to worry about it. Sure enough, I was right, as I realized that as the evening went on, I felt warmer, and warmer. Getting up on a chair and feeling the vents, I realized my air conditioning was no longer operating, and it was 85 degrees outside. Yes, I live in Miami, but I do not like high temperatures nor does my body tolerate it. Anyhow, a week later (due to the holidays, my work schedule and the Nazi condo board rules), my air conditioning repairman came by and confirmed my air conditioning motor had burned out, caused a short circuit, and that was the explosion I heard and the smoke I saw.
Despite the fact they were unable to help me find a conclusive origin of my fire, they were very friendly, they took me seriously (something a lot of people don’t seem to do anymore), they were very professional, and patient. I appreciated their reassuring words, and the fact that they took the time to check my appliances with me, just to make sure that when I used them on my own, they would not cause further smoke. I kept apologizing for making them come out and they were very gracious and dismissive of my apologies. Their response time, as I said, was incredible. I have never had to deal with firefighters before (and hopefully won’t need to, in my lifetime), but if they are as friendly and helpful as these were, then at least I know that it will help ease the unpleasantness of having to deal with an unwanted fire.