去年2月的一天清晨,当她落在我腿上的时候，我感觉我的猫-丁当的爪子狠抓了一下。她把我从熟睡中叫醒了,之前从没发生过，这完全是不寻常的:她睡在楼下,从不进卧室。
Early one morning last February, I felt the thud of my cat Tink's paws as she landed on my legs. I was fast asleep and she woke me up, which had never happened before. It was completely uncharacteristic: she sleeps downstairs and never comes into the bedroom.
因为前天晚上外出，所以我昏昏沉沉地坐起来,但很快我意识到一些事情是异常的。房间里充满了一层白色的烟雾,怪异和令人惊慌, 像一堆白色的云悬挂在三英尺高的空中。
I sat up feeling groggy because I'd been out the night before, but I soon realised something was very wrong. The room was half-filled with a layer of white smoke, eerie and alarming, hanging in the air about three feet deep like a bank of white cloud.
我把我的爱人Russ叫醒，恐慌中我们跳下床。当我们费力的穿过厚厚烟雾时，我仍然试图确定到底发生了什么,当我出去站在地上时危险才真正到来。
I woke up my partner, Russ, in a panic and we jumped out of bed. As we waded through the thick smoke, I was still trying to process exactly what was going on, and the danger only really hit me when I went out on to the landing.
我的儿子杰克19岁也已经醒了，当他打开他哥哥斯科特的门时,黑烟滚滚，烟一下子从斯科特的房间冲到天花板上，触发了那里的烟雾报警器。22岁的斯科特跳出来大喊大叫，他难以呼吸。我拨通了消防队的电话,他告诉我们尽可能的尽快离开房子。
Our son Jake, 19, had woken up, too, and as he opened his brother Scott's door, black smoke billowed out. The smoke from Scott's room curled up to the ceiling; it was only then that the smoke alarm was triggered. Scott, 22, emerged, shouting above the racket that he was struggling to breathe. I phoned the fire brigade, who told us to leave the house as quickly as we could.
留下我们所有的财产是巨大的痛苦,但是我们知道别无选择，我们想着丁当也已经溜出了房子。
It was a massive wrench, leaving all of our belongings behind, but we knew we had no choice. We assumed Tink had slipped out of the house, too.
几分钟后,六辆消防车来了。当我困倦无神地站在路上看着我们的房子时,我意识到了火焰是从隔壁邻居的屋子前面蔓延过来的。她已经设法逃出来了，因为吸入浓烟太多已被送往医院。
Within minutes, six fire engines arrived. As I stood blearily in the road, I looked at our house and realised that the source of the fire was actually our next-door neighbour's - flames were licking the front of her house. She had also managed to get out and was later taken to hospital for smoke inhalation.