Never leave towels on night storage heaters

Had a lovely early wake up call at about 7am today, with the fire alarm absolutely screaming the place down.  My first instinct was to say, "oh damn, someone's burnt their toast... who makes toast at this time of day anyway?".  But as soon as we got out of our flat into the stair well, we could start to smell the acrid, noxious fumes.

We had no idea who was officially in the building.  So we had to hope for the best.  Then there was the debate over if we should call 999 or if it was automatically linked to the fire department, as many university halls are.  We didn't really debate for too long, we just phoned straight away.  And whilst someone was phoning 999, I ended up trying to get hold of the supposedly 24hour security office, in the hope that they would be able to assist us with matters like a head count, if the fire department should be called etc.  And we couldn't get hold of them, despite numerous attempts, especially when the fire crew were trying to switch the alarm off so we could all go back inside.

Turns out someone had left their towel on their night storage heater.  I went to move my car (which was in a time restricted bay) so I missed the big "action" but the firemen managed to remove the towel and leave it on the pavement outside the front door.  I saw the embers when I returned.  Don't think they needed to do anything else, besides help with aerating the block of flats and tell off the girl responsible.  Then we were eventually allowed back in after about 40mins.  Everything still stinks like mad, and it makes my eyes water a little every now and then, but hey, things could be a lot worse.  I'm just deprived of sleep now, there was really no point in attempting to get back to sleep after all that.  So I've just randomly surfed the net instead.  It's all but time to get ready now.  I did take a photo of the fire engines, but it was on my mobile, and I currently don't have the means to upload them, so I'll put it up eventually.

Have a good, fire-free day everyone!