A terrifying wake up call

So at 4am on Monday morning we woke up to our two neighbors yelling at each other (they were already in their car getting ready to leave their house). We thought it was strange so we were pretty confused until Ryan noticed that there was a beeping sound coming from somewhere. I thought it's nothing but Ryan jumped out of bed to go downstairs. He came back up and he told me the house is filling with smoke and you couldn't even see down the basement. This is about the time when the panic sets in. I threw on some clothes and went downstairs to get Monkey's leash. I (finally) get Monkey's leash on (my hands were shaking so this proved to be a difficult task) and a jacket as Ryan grabs Caley and puts her in the carrier. I went outside and realize I literally have nothing but the dog. Ryan manages to go upstairs and grab his wallet and by the time we're both outside, there are about 4 fire trucks and 20+ fireman. I tried to go back in to get my purse and shut the door but a fireman told me, "Do not go in there, ma'am". By this point, we realize it's next door and the fire man are breaking all the windows to get the air out. We were terrified.

Fire men... too close for comfort

We stood outside for about an hour with the neighbors, Caley and Monkey. The fire men were everywhere; on the neighbor's roof, on our roof, in the house and outside of the house. Ryan gets the scoop and one of the fire men tell him that he thought the fire started by the dryer in their basement. Who does laundry at 4am? After a little over an hour, we finally went back inside our (smoke filled) house. We were very lucky that nothing in our house got damaged (unless you count the dirtiness of everything the fire men touched) and that the neighbors all got out okay.

It was quite an eventful weekend! I hope to never be that close to a fire ever again....