Fire in the Middle of the Night

The Great Ducknik is still in Minnesota, so at 3am when Plotnik was roused from sleep by the smell of smoke, he was on his own. Remembering last month, when the smell of wood beginning to smoulder had come from under the redwood siding of his own house, and when J-Whacky, the painter, had discovered it in the nick of time, Plottie was wide awake in an instant. He walked outside to the front of the house, and the smell of smoke was stronger yet. He walked back through the house and out onto the back deck and the smell was there too, but somewhat less strong.

Could the siding be burning again from the use of that heat gun to help prep the old redwood for painting? It didn't seem likely, since J-Whack hadn't worked on Sunday, but Plottie couldn't get the thought out of his head. So he went back downstairs, put on some shoes, and walked up to BZ's room, ripped the protective blue masking tape off her window, opened it and leaned out the window to the upper level of the scaffolding. He shined his flashlight up against the eaves. No smoke visible. Sniff -- nope. Snnifff? - nope. Should he climb out the window onto the scaffolding? Sniffff? No, doesn't seem like anything's burning.

So he went back downstairs, walked around the perimeter of the house, shining the flashlight, sniffing like a basset hound. He walked around the neighborhood in his pajamas, trying to locate where the smell was strongest. After half an hour, he gave up and went back to bed. But not to sleep -- how can you sleep when your house is burning down?

It was 7:30am almost immediately. Today is when Todd the Carpenter arrives, and the new windows are scheduled to be delivered. When Plottie walked out to greet Todd and J-Whack, both men immediately told him they had been up during the night too, thinking their houses were on fire, trying to figure out where the smell of smoke was coming from.

You can't see Angel Island from World Headquarters. As The Great Mushnik has reported this morning, it turns out there is a big brush fire out there, across from Alcatraz out in the Bay. Because of cutbacks, there was no crew to man the one fire engine on the island, so they had to wait until early this morning to bomb the fire from the air. They'll contain it today -- nobody but campers ever stays out there, and Plot imagines when Duck hears how the campers were rousted from their sleeping bags by burning brush that will be one more enormous lag bolt into the coffin of Plotnik Camping.

Hey, when there's a full moon, and the sky is bright, and it's the middle of the night, and it smells like smoke, it can seem perfectly plausible that your house could be on fire. At least Mush could see the flames.

Thanks to Jay Gonzalez for that photo.