Flashing lights -- long night

I woke up at 1:40 this morning to what I thought was a garbage truck outside. When I opened my eyes, I noticed a red glow coming from the window. After checking out the window, I woke Chad up and told him he should run across the street and check on our neighbors because there were two fire trucks at their house.

Smoke was billowing out of their porch. Over the course of the next hour, three more fire trucks and a fire chief vehicle showed up. The fire fighters seemed baffled because they couldn't find the source of the fire. Smoke was coming from in between the concrete slab porch and concrete steps. They finally pulled the steps away from the porch with pry bars and sledge hammers. When air got under there, what was simply smoking finally starting flaming. It was bales of hay that the builder had stuffed under the concrete steps that had combusted. Bizarre!

Several of our neighbors had gathered in the street to make sure everyone was okay. We returned to bed smelling like smoke, but easily went back to sleep. What a night!