Last tuesday at about 5am the doorbell rang twice, we have a disco in the same street and it's common that some people gather late night at our street to drink before or after going to the disco so I thought "it must be some drunk dudes playing around" but I woke up anyways, half slept I looked through the window and saw my neighbor yelling, "please call the fire department, the gym is burning!" I ran to the phone and called them and after a few rings an old lady very passive asked me what was the emergency, I said "the gym next to my house is burning, the place is right behind X place (a very known place downtown)" she said: "ok, we'll see..", I was so accelerated that I thought this old lady will just ignore my call thinking this was a prank, so I called the police right away and told them the same thing, fortunately a more proactive lady answered my call and told me "we are going right away", that's what I wanted to hear really. Then I told my girlfriend what was going on and we both dressed up and we decided that she will take our kid to her parent's house while I stayed at home to help out and they can come back after the danger is gone.

Just when she was leaving all the police and fire trucks arrived and the firsts fireman where going inside the gym, fortunately nobody was trapped!, the fireman used our wall to get to the roof and make their way to create a escape for the smoke and control the fire, so I was helping out in anything that I could while this guys do their job.

I gotta say that in our country the fireman profession is complete volunteer, they don't have a salary and the national budget finance only 30% of their cost operation, everything else comes from donations from the community and money out of their own pockets (yes you have to pay to be part of the fireman), I also have to say that this situation is not forced by any policy, it's just the way fireman wanted to be, they want to be volunteer and don't get payed, it's something they do to help others without expecting anything in return, they really do a noble service.

In about 15 minutes they controlled the fire and after about an hour they left, that's gotta be the longest 15 minutes ever, I thought they took a lot more time!. Nobody got seriously hurt, just superficial burns that my Sensei and Felipe got when they tried to stop the fire, they lost all the second floor of the gym, most of the weights and equipment, fortunately the tatami was intact so martial arts training can continue very soon and a lot of people is helping out to rebuild the second floor and that's very cool.

Anyways, some pictures can be found my flickr set Fire at the dojo.

I'm sure they will get everything restored soon, a lot of people care and help and we all would love to see the gym working at full capacity again.