I was 18 and in a so-so apartment on the ground floor. Basic 2 story buildings in cube form housing; 8 apartments per. Twas something like a tuesday midmorning... a kind of day where a few people are home, but most are off working. I was lounging on my couch trying to half-read a book and half pay attention to a dreary midmorning movie when a tapping came at my door. It was just a soft tapping... but surely at my door. I opened it to see the 3 year old son of my upstairs daigonal neighbor saying to me... 'mommy needs help'. He pointed upwards. I followed his pointing to see that the entire roof well was filled with bonfire grade smoke and building up fast. Mommy appeared over the railing in a full panic wearing a blue bathrobe screeching for help. Adrenaline kicked in and reached over for the fire alarm... which came off the wall into my hand... *sigh* I took one more step and looked at the emergency extinguisher well. The glass was shattered and the vessel was full of cobwebby Sprite cans. None of the building fire alarms were going off. I bounded up the stairs and told her to knock on doors and get everyone out and take her kid far away.
I pushed open her door only to be met with floor to ceiling smoke. The kitchen well was full aglow with light and fire. I held my breath and charged in low. I saw that it was a trashcan fire. The trashcan had melted down to a third of its original height and the fire had spread up the wall in a v formation and was already touching the roof. I swept my arm across the kitchen counter to clear it off. I took the largest pot I found and stuck it under the faucet. Water was turned on full blast. I grabbed a kitchen towel, dunked it into the water, and ran back out into the hall. I squeezed the water out of the towel so I could use it as an air filter of sorts. My eyes were starting to sting like mad... but at least I knew well enough to not breathe the stuff as well as keep below the thermal layer. On my second trip in I noticed that everything in the top 3 feet of the room was melting and starting to smoulder.. the dread flashover effect was getting close. I grabbed the pot and splashed it up at the highest point of the wall. The squeal of instant steam and additional smoke was blinding... but at least the air pocket was brought down a few degrees. I reset the pot and bailed out for air. It took 5 trips to douse the primary fire. Something like 4 people and a dozen pets were rescued. Ironic enough, it took about 15 minutes for someone to call the fire department and another 90 minutes for them to show as apparently all units were off handling god knows what and just plain overwhelmed. My upstairs neighbor was the blind man in question. He was asleep and would surely have perished. I guess that the flashover point was less than a minute off when I got up there. Everything on top of the fridge and in the cabinets was molten slag de plastic. a few toys had caught fire up there... but without the extra heat... soon self extingished from the lack of oxygen. I looked like a mugged chimneysweep after it was over.
the supposed story was that the mommy asked the kid to help clean up a bit and he tapped out the ashtray with a lit cig into the trash. It smouldered for probably 20 minutes before it was noticed. What I truly believed was that mommy (I think her name was Starleen) flicked her ash directly into the trash as a bad habit. I had seen her do it before. She was just asking for trouble.