Igneous Range

One hot night in July, the Adroushans were sitting watching TV before bed. The windows of the house were open to prevent the house from cooking its inhabitants. The Adroushans heard shouting outside, competing with the audio of the TV. Armen ran out to see what was going on, then burst in a moment later to report that the Hacienda was on fire. The Hacienda was a Mexican restaurant down the street. Armen grabbed a drink out of the fridge and ran back outside. Mother and father followed. The crying of sirens soon followed them. Cindy waited inside, then thought better of it, and walked out to the street to keep a watchful eye on the fire down the way. Her pyrophyllic family was down at the corner, admiring the flames up close.

Cindy did not approach the ruins of the fire for days, but spent hours in front of her own house keeping an eye on the wreckage, as if on a fire watch. Cindy got precious little sleep. Finally, Armen talked her into getting a closer look so that she’d know that the fire was truly dead.

Once Cindy gained the courage to approach the corner, she would walk by it often, over and over again, looking into the black, saturated ruins. Neighbors, kids at school, and people at the supermarket checkout line all wondered aloud about the cause: Arson? A casually discarded cigarette? A gas leak? A grease fire? Cindy listened, and she silently inquired into each suspect and brooded.

How could grease start a fire?, she asked herself. Nobody in her family gave her a very good explanation, so she tried asking a librarian. She was given a book that gave an explanation, but she needed help understanding the explanation. It occurred to her that a firefighter might know, so she dropped by the fire station that was a block out of her way on her way home from school. A friendly firefighter took the time to explain to her how water can expand quickly when heated, and how steam could blast out of pan like steam from a kettle, or even an old locomotive. Then the firefighter showed her some superheated grease. The firefighter then explained to Cindy how the steam could carry the grease very far very fast, and Cindy began to understand. She understood that even water and cooking oil could conspire to burn a building down. She could see it quite clearly. But this enlightenment only deepened Cindy’s fear.