We had a thrilling night last week. We had gone to bed on Wednesday night (2/4) at about 10:30 as usual. And, as usual, I fell asleep within minutes of laying my head down while Adam struggled for an hour or 2 to fall asleep. I recall being awake at some point in the night (and come to find out, Adam was too) and hearing a loud, rumbling BANG. I couldn't distinguish where it came from. I wondered if it was something that happened in our house. It sounded so close. I lay there for a few minutes a little nervous but eventually I allowed myself to fall back to sleep.
I don't recall what time that noise occurred but, sometime later I woke up again, this time to go to the bathroom. Before getting up, I looked at the clock next to my bed and wondered why it was off. I then noticed the light that flickers from the wifi router was not lighting up in our room. I suspected that Adam had turned off the clock and covered up the router so that he could better fall asleep (that boy needs the room to be pitch black) since he had been struggling. I got up and baby-stepped blindly to the bathroom. I wondered what time it was and looked in the kitchen at the oven clock. No time showed. I looked at the microwave. Nothing. I then heard sirens that sounded to be right out our front door. I turned my head to look out the front window from the kitchen and noticed the outside glowing. I immediately ran to the front porch and what I saw was extremely distressing.
Just across the orchard that is directly in front of our house was an enormous fire! It was the brand new, still under construction apartments that were being built. I had been watching those go up for the past few months. I sat their in awe, wondering what could have happened. The first thing I thought was that lightening started it, which would have explained the loud thunderous noise we had heard earlier. (oh, I must make a side note right now... I'm currently listening to a random shuffle of songs on Spotify right now and the song "Girl on Fire" by Alicia Keys just came on. Haha, I'm glad I was not a girl on fire a few nights ago.) As I watched on the front porch, there was a constant flow of cars driving on our road. Many pulled over to observe. Many got out of their cars and walked through the orchard to get a closer look. After about 10 minutes of watching, I decided that this was something eventful enough to wake Adam. I went to the room and softly said, "Adam." He was partially awake already, not even from the the events outside, but just because that's how his nights are. Poor boy. He got up and we both continued to just stare and wonder what could have happened. We talked about how we both had heard that booming noise earlier. We watched the fire hoses douse the area. The fire dwindled eventually after burning the whole building down. It became very smokey which caused our house to smell of smoke all that night and into the the next day. Eventually, knowing it was under control, we went back to bed and tried to sleep the rest of the night.
The next day we found ashes all around our home. I went and observed the area more closely after school...
(These big chunks were all around. They're about the size of quarter)
I came to learn that this was an act of arson. About 15 minutes before this site went up in flames, a Provo police car was set on fire just a few blocks west of us. They believe that the car was used as a distraction. Investigators also believe this event is linked to other arson acts that have occurred over the past year or so. The events all have similar patterns of lighting something on fire and then minutes later, a larger fire is started (I believe they've been other construction sites).
It is unbelievable how someone or a group of people have that much inhumanity in them to do this much damage. Luckily no one was injured or killed. They still have yet to catch the people who are responsible for this.
It made for a very eventful, memorable night in our neighborhood. One that I wouldn't want to happen again, of course.
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