The Bed on Fire, A close call with a fire caused by a mosquito coil. The Bed on Fire,
In the winter of 2000-2001, when I was in 6th or 7th grade, something shocking happened. My family lived in a house with two bedrooms: my parents had one, my sisters had the other, and I slept on a single bed in the hall between the rooms. To protect me from mosquitoes, my mom placed a mosquito coil under my bed near my legs. The coil burned slowly to keep the bugs away.
One night, as I slept under a blanket, part of it must have drifted onto the burning coil, starting a fire. The flames quickly spread, and soon one side of my bed was engulfed in smoke and fire. Miraculously, I stayed asleep while the hall filled with smoke from the burning blanket and bed frame. With no ventilation in the house, the smoke would have been deadly if not for my sister’s timely intervention.
My sister, who was around 18 at the time, woke up to the smell of smoke and saw a flickering yellow light through the small glass window in the bedroom door. She panicked, screamed, and woke my parents. My dad rushed out, found me still asleep on the burning bed, and quickly woke me up. We all rushed outside while he tried to assess the fire’s extent. Thankfully, the blaze was limited to half the bed. We filled buckets with water and doused the flames within 15-20 minutes. Once the smoke cleared and we were safe on the balcony, my dad asked me how I had slept through the fire.
