Around 4 am, just as I was preparing to go to bed, I opened my window and got a whiff of burning paper, it was quite strong, and I thought it was very odd that someone should be burning anything at the time of the morning. But I only thought it was odd, it wasn't a direct cause for concern because there used to be a bit of a dodgy shop owner by the side of me who'd go out into the yard at odd hours and burn something. I was never sure why they did it, and I never enquired. But it was 4am which was odd by these even their standards (I later learned the shop owner has moved on, I never even noticed!).
Anyway, being a bit nosy, and thinking this is all very odd I went out into the yard to have a look. But there wasn't the warm glow I expected over the wall, so I starting thinking it must be someone else. I wondered around my yard aimlessly looking over the neighbours walls, trying to work out who was having a bon fire or something stupid, the smell was growing more persistent so I reasoned that someone must still be doing it. But a clear half hour wondering what was going and poking my nose over walls didn't yield anything. I repeatedly checked the offices I live over, seeing if smoke was coming from under the door, or if it was warm, and I checked the side windows but I simply couldn't find anything the matter, so I decided it must be over the side, in the corner I couldn't quite see.
Chalking it down to one of life's little mysteries I returned inside, and closed my window to keep out the smell, and went to bed feeling annoyed that the smell wouldn't go away. It had already been quite strong when I went outside, so as it persisted I just tried to ignore it. It wasn't until my throat started tickling, and I started coughing that I realised something was up. It wasn't bad coughing, or even a horrible tickling throat. It was just enough to make me get up to have another look at the yard, when I noticed there was a thin haze of smoke towards the ceiling in my flat. I had been laying down, plus I sleep on the floor on a futon so I'd been very low.
Little did I know, that the fire had started about 25 - 30 meters away from me, on the other side of my flat across from the main road. It wasn't until I went into the front room and looked out the window, that I noticed uniformed men already gathered outside the spar. If there had been any noise from their cars, or anything I certainly didn't hear them.
By that point, with my back windows closed, I quickly realised that the smoke inside my flat, wasn't as bad as outside! This was a bit of a problem for me! Whenever I've imagined dealing with the consequences of a fire, it would be raging inside my place which would logically make outside better. But this wasn't the case here. I wasn't in immediate danger and as I looked out into the yard and saw the smoke rolling thickly over the roof tops, I wasn't sure where in Neath I could go to avoid these effects.
I was completely out of my depth and had no idea what to do for the best, whenever I opened the back door, it became obvious that breathing outside was worse than in. So I blocked up the door in my front room, and retreated to the back where I spent nearly two hours wondering what to do. Eventually my brain kicked in and I stated wondering around my flat putting a few bags together the smoke didn't seem to be getting any lesser and outside it seemed that I might have to leave the flat all together, venture the worse stuff, and see if I could get booked into a hotel or something.
Luckily for me, it finally started to reduce outside and I ventured out. This is a video of what I found.
