a week of fires

Last week, in a freak coincidence, both my 81-year old aunt, who lives near Hyères in the South of France, and my 79-year old next-door neighbour suffered from a home fire, alas destroying most of her house for my aunt and fortunately remaining confined to his garage for my neighbour, thanks to the quick and super-efficient intervention of the local fire brigade which did much better than our weak attempt at hosing down the flames. At least, no one got hurt in either case, but these close crises reminded me how quickly even a small fire can turn out of control…