Our Christmas would have been merry had the neighbours garage not been set alight...then ours---and almost our home...very frightening as the fire was out of control.  Had the neighbours on our right side not seen the fire at 1am in the morning, I think it would have been much worse.  The most scariest night I had had for a long time though as the fire seemed to take to the garage in minutes and my X-Partner dashed into the damn thing to get the car out of there...followed by  a large expolosion from something flammable in his workshop behind it.  Had it been me, I would not have bothered to save the darn car knowing the stuff that was capable of blowing in there.  Because the wind was blowing towards our section, it carried the heat and flame onto our garage two meters away and most certainly would have burned the house down.  None of the smoke alarms went off which was confusing as they usually are very sensitive and go off at the slightest.  I am very concerned at this point because in November someone set light to our mail box at the end of the drive (which is situated between ours and the same neighbours property.  I reported it to the police and they logged it as arson, but we never thought anything of it.  It had been a week before bonfire night (fireworks) so I took it as some kid being bored that felt like a little action. 

The roof of our garage is badly fire damaged...but the garage next door was completely flattened.  All the kids are coughing with the smoke inhalation as we evatuated the property and before hand.  The police cordoned the whole area off with tape and are treating it as a crime scene as they found what appeared to have started the fire was a can of something flammable in the center of next doors garage which the neighbours cannot account for.  Very scarey.  Frankly had the other neighbours not been in their back yard having a party, it would not have been seen until our house had caught fire.  So that was the end of our Christmas Day...LOL!  An electrical fault I can understand, but someone deliberately setting a fire like that...they must have a lot of hate in them..nevermind peace. 

To this end I would wish folks a SAFE christmas...

From inside the tool shed as the fire from the next door neighbours shed took hold...

 

View from the back door of our house on the porch just before the firebrigade arrived...