Someone set my neighbor's truck on fire very early Friday morning.

I was awakend around 4 am by the sound of a car alarm. It did not go off, so I figured whoever it belonged to wasn't home (a common occurence in my neck of the woods) and tried to sleep some more. I was perplexed at how loud it was, and as tired as I was, not acknowledging the fact that this also meant it was very close as well.

About 15 minutes later I jumped out of bed because I saw a strange orange light shining through our bedroom window. I am very tired and groggy and things are not registering properly. At this point I think it's an obnoxious light from a tow truck and I head toward the back door to see what's going on.

When I got to the door, I looked outside and saw my neighbor's truck was on fire. Not my next door neighbor, but the neighbors on the other side of them. I yelled to Ken to dial 911. I grabbed the phone, the operator answered, I told her our address and that my neighbor's truck was on fire - and at that very moment two fire trucks drove up the street.

"Oh, they're here. Nevermind."

The operator giggled, "Yes, we've received several calls. Thank you."

As I was walking to put the phone down, I heard my next door neighbor running out of his house. He got into his truck, and very quickly and erratically drove out of the driveway. I went to the front door, saw my downstairs neighbor and the woman who lives on the first floor next door were outside talking. And, as far as I knew, the neighbors who owned the burning truck were not home.

They are great neighbors. They are always fixing up their house. I thought it was a shame that someone would do that, but these houses share a back alley. He tries to keep people off the property. We gave up. When we locked our gate we did get some retaliation. Our outside items are safe. And, well, my downstairs neighbor's grandsons "keep an eye" on their granny's place.

Feeling that my immediate neighbors were all accounted for, I tried to go back to sleep for at least another 90 minutes, but I kept getting up to look at the fire. The trees were on fire and the water from the hose looked like it was just pushing the flames on to my neighbor's garage. The truck exploded twice, powerful enough to make the glass on my back door rattle. The smoke was thick enough to irritate my sinuses from inside my house. I eventually went back to sleep for a little while.

When I got up at 7am, I was still very groggy and my sinuses were a mess. I looked out the front door and saw the fire trucks were still outside and I saw a 13 ABC news truck in another neighbor's driveway. The only thing I could think of was how I was going to get to work, my street is one way and they were blocking me. I decided I'd break the law and drive the wrong way down the street if they were still there when I left.

At 7:30am, it was still dark and their were no more trucks blocking my street. I sped off to work, exhausted, with burning eyes and a dry throat.

Seven hours later I came home and saw my downstairs neighbor standing in the driveway. I got out of my car and asked her if someone set the truck on fire, and just as I finished my question I looked up to see that the back of my neighbor's house was a black shell, as well as the truck. I was shocked. Ken and I had been unable to see that far back from our back porch. This is why my next door neighbor fled his house. This is why the smoke was so thick.

Because of the high winds, the flames had jumped from the house to the truck.  And after a small emotional episode, I realized how happy I was that I didn't know how bad it was until I came home from work.

Funny how we only know what we need to know when we need to know it.