A lot of colleagues and friends have likely heard me say that I’ve spent my day “fighting fires” — an idiom I use a lot to collectively encompass all the random issues that come with management.

Last Friday, I left the office to get some work done, away from the figurative “fires,” and inadvertently found myself dealing with a literal fire.

Determined to finish a project on deadline, I walked down to Atomic Bean Coffee to remove the distractions. Apparently it worked.

Earbuds in and blaring music, I was typing feverishly on my laptop, checking lots of items off my to-do list and totally ignoring everything around me, when a fellow patron nodded at my cell phone, indicating that it had been going off a lot.

I picked up the phone to find four missed calls and three texts, and as I scrolled through them, four more calls were coming in at once.

“Are you OK?” Scott Novak said as I answered my phone. “I think your apartment is on fire!”

I swiveled in my seat to see several emergency vehicles blocking Main Street directly behind me. I had been so focused on my work that I was entirely oblivious to the commotion.

Sure enough, as I crossed the street in a hurry, I saw some of my neighbors and several business owners crowding the front entrance to the building. Firefighters were climbing up and down the stairs, and smoke was very clearly emanating from the building.

As you likely read in our paper, the fire was in the apartment behind mine, and it was quickly contained due to the quick thinking and courageous work of Jim Morris, who owns the Paris Soda Co. — and is also my next door neighbor.

Thanks to Jim’s actions, my neighbor’s dogs were safe from the blaze, and firefighters were able to quickly extinguish the blaze. My apartment was unharmed outside of smoke damage, and damage to my neighbor’s apartment could have been much worse.

Through the entire experience, I realized once again what a great community this is to live in, where neighbors help neighbors and people genuinely care about others.

Once the flames were extinguished and I started scrolling through social media, I was also reminded how important community journalism is. With a separate fire across town at Walmart (and apparently Mike Shelton causing a fuss at Arby’s), all sorts of conspiracy theories were developing. My favorite was that an arsonist had set the apartment on fire before heading to Walmart to set fire to the clothing department.

Almost as soon as Sarah Culton’s story was posted online, the rumors were quieted. 

A small apartment fire does not get the attention of TV news stations, but it certainly raises some red flags in the community as patrons wonder who was impacted and why the street was blocked.

Typically, when fires occur I am on the outside looking in. I’m either the one asking for information or guiding others to do so. In this situation, I was on the inside looking out, and I was able to gain a new appreciation for the crew we have in the Leader Publications newsroom.

I’d like to offer my sincerest thanks to Jim Morris and Niles City Fire for extinguishing the fire at 222 E. Main Friday, and to our news crew for extinguishing the rumors and reporting the news.