Anatomy of a fire

The sequence of photographs runs from top left to bottom right. It was truly horrible.

After being woken just after 4am by the fire alarm, and once I realised things were serious, we just got out. Between us we managed to bring more or less enough stuff to be functional (I brought my laptop and phone; Mr A brought his wallet and I've subsequently discovered how to put "cards" on my phone). I also had the presence of mind to move the car out of the garage at 4.30am (when probably pissed and definitely addled) onto the street. Mr A has found a tablet up in Tain that gives him access to his email.

Access even to our part of the building is not going to be easy (there are still secondary fires, apparently, and who knows the state of the steel frame), which is why we came to Tain. It was a relief to sleep in a familiar bed last night, have our own wifi, and have friends around both in Tain and in Edinburgh. Multiple offers of doorstep drop offs! We are very grateful for the multiple offers of help, but mostly we are focused on the what ifs, and the unacceptability of living in a building where a simple flat fire was not contained, but resulted in the destruction of about 15+ flats and possibly structural damage to the whole building. The fire raged for about 6 hours. It's unbelievable.

It will take a while to work through the trauma even if we haven't "lost" that much. And my main thoughts are with those who have lost everything they have and especially with the woman in whose flat the fire started, who had only moved in last Friday and so wasn't familiar at all with the vagaries of those flats. We met her in Cocorico cafe nearby when we went for some breakfast about 9am, after staring at a burning building for about four hours straight, which was probably not a good idea in retrospect... That poor woman. And everyone who watched their property go up in smoke (or get completely drowned in water). After breakfast, we headed in to my office as it was warm and there was wifi and I could charge my devices, and everyone was very supportive with offers of accommodation, etc. before we eventually decided driving to Tain (in what turned out to be teeming rain) was the best option. We got here at about 9.45 and went more or less straight to bed. With hot water bottles!

We've had fire safety concerns more or less since we moved in about the design of the flats, that an ordinary flat fire could not be contained. That's all this was. Not a catastrophic explosion. Just a fire that got out of control and could not be fought properly from both sides from the beginning. It will take a long time to work through that as well.

Many thanks to all for your support. It is really, really appreciated.