CHAPTER THIRTY
The municipal library was unusually crowded for a Friday afternoon and Lucinda Albright was having an abnormally busy day. She was pleased with the patronage but knew most of the children weren’t there for the reasons she’d have preferred. Over the new-year period the council installed free Wi-Fi to help entice numbers to the library. With the school term having just started word of it spread like wildfire. There was a catch though. Limited downloads per month that when reached locked the user out of the network until the new month started.
Today was the third of March and most of the children were using the library to download music or whatever else they did on their smartphones. Except for Lucinda’s most regular customer. She’d been coming to the library almost every afternoon for the past three years. Whether doing homework or endlessly reading a book, the young girl with rich olive skin and curly golden hair could usually be found somewhere throughout the library.
When she was younger, the girl would walk to the library from the nearby school but having this year started high school, Lucinda noted she now caught the bus alighting just across the road. The girl once told Lucinda her parents owned a business in the adjacent shopping centre, Lucinda didn’t remember which, and would always meet them after work to go home as a family. It was a lovely routine affording the girl time to study, her parents time to work, and ensuring they all got to be with each other as much as possible.
This afternoon she arrived on the first school bus and now silently studied at one of the more private nooks in the quieter part of the library.
There was another regular in today. He’d been coming every week for as long as Ms Allbright could remember and the librarian knew the gentleman very well. He would often ask for her assistance and over the years, and only through clever allocation of her limited funds, had Lucinda built a generous collection of specialty books primarily for his use. She’d also arranged the installation of a specialised computer which thankfully got regular usage. The man used the library facilities on a weekly basis to pay his bills, search the Internet, or catch up on the news.
Today he was planning a holiday as far as Lucinda could ascertain. He was travelling abroad later in the year and now comparing airfares. Judging by the stolen glimpses taken over his shoulder, he was also setting up an account with the Housing Bank of Mekong Delta.
Both knew their way around the library and Lucinda left them to their own devices; almost forgetting them such was their familiarity. She’d become preoccupied with a group of school children gathered at the other side of the building making far too much noise for her liking. Lucinda had intervened three times already, each time managing to encourage a few kids to leave. It was times like this she wished her assistant worked longer hours. Unfortunately the library patronage was normally so low that couldn’t be justified.
The council facility was built in the early 1970’s and while regularly maintained, even updated where needed, it largely went untouched remaining greatly identifiable to the era both architecturally and aesthetically. It was small by modern standards but to be fair, never expected to be more than a suburban library for a small community. The building was undoubtedly out-dated and underutilised; however a handful of councillors championed its existence placating the needs of the community. The design was based on a large ‘H’ formation. Through automatic sliding glass doors, a large entry foyer held the library’s main counter, and behind that, a collection of administrative offices and storage rooms. Short passageways ran from either side of the foyer to the library proper. To the left the main arm housed most of the literary collection and the larger number of tables and communal reading areas. To the right was a smaller wing with a greater concentration of technical tomes, private study desks, and specialty electronic equipment. Both areas were purposely designed to be as far away from each other as possible, accessible only through the central entry foyer.
The building itself was a brick structure with large glass panels in the roofing and eves capturing natural light. Enormous exposed wooden trusses created a cathedral like ceiling helping to absorb unwanted sound. Other than that it was ordinary. The carpet was old, the bookshelves aging laminate.
The escalating din from the front corner of the library’s left wing drew Lucinda’s attention yet again forcing her to ask the children to quieten down. Normally she disliked being dictatorial and grateful they were there in the first place, but the children today were pushing her boundaries and they soon saw a side of Ms Albright rarely witnessed. Managing to persuade another small group of kids to leave, Lucinda popped into her office to make a note of complaint to her superiors regarding the Wi-Fi system. She wasn’t going to put up with this behaviour at the start of each month without some further staff assistance.
Her office became a sanctuary affording welcome respite and in the unlikely event someone wanted to checkout a book, Lucinda could still see the front counter from her desk. She relaxed and was soon distracted by the latest periodical magazine arriving only that morning. The noise from the children seemed to subside and given it was getting late in the afternoon, Lucinda thought perhaps they were finally leaving. Listening closely for the children Lucinda noticed the very faint smell of smoke drifting into her office. It had an unusual odour, and she at first thought it might have just been her imagination. However the smell persisted, growing stronger the longer she thought about it.
The admin section of the library wasn’t very large and over the years used for many purposes. When staff numbers were greater, one of the rooms was used as an office, but at other times utilised as a storeroom, staff lounge and currently, to house the photocopier. And along with that came everything else. Reams of paper, toner cartridges, acetone fluid used for cleaning graffiti from book covers and library surfaces, and a special fluid used for the microfiche containing diethyl ether. All fighting for space in an already overcrowded room. At the rear of the copier, next to the cooling fan vent, was a heap of toners and papers not fitting anywhere else. Only the area in front of the machine was directly accessible forcing everything else to be stacked in piles with neat little walkways between them. A thin layer of dust accumulated over every surface as the cleaners couldn’t get inside the small office space to keep on top of it. The room was congested but functional, and Lucinda hated it being in that state.
The librarian rose from her desk to investigate the smoke. After checking the foyer and one of the other offices, she entered the ‘utility’ office to discover small flames rising from the back of the photocopier and lapping against the piles of toners and copying paper. Already the area was charring black and the rising smoke curled against the ceiling before rolling into the other sections of the small administrative area.
Panicked, Lucinda ran to the foyer where two fire extinguishers stood for such a situation. One for paper fires, the other for chemical ones. As the fire was fuelled by both paper and acetone fluids, she grabbed the closest extinguisher and ran back to the office. Lucinda was shocked to see how quickly the fire had spread. The flames now rose well above the copier and the piles of boxes become columns of fire almost reaching the ceiling. The smoke continued to swirl from the mix of fuels - paper, plastic, chemical, wood - dancing in a monochromatic palette of white, black and grey.
Lucinda ripped the safety pin from the extinguisher and aimed the black nozzle toward the middle of the room. Holding her breath and squinting her eyes she squeezed the trigger. A surprisingly noisy cloud of foam erupted from the nozzle forcing the extinguisher to recoil in her hand. The spray of foam combined with the smoke and flames confusing the room even more. Lucinda held the trigger down and shook the nozzle back and forth, up and down trying to get the largest coverage. In what seemed like only a minute, the retardant was depleted and all that remained in the extinguisher was air.
Ms Albright was now breathing heavily and her eyes watered from the smoke still pouring through the narrow office doorway. When the foam settled she found it had little to no affect. The flames seemed larger and judging by the intense heat, continuing to grow. But the fire alarm hadn’t yet sounded. It remained silent. The sprinkler system running throughout the library hadn’t activated either. Lucinda knew something was wrong.
The children.
The only ones now in the library were the school children causing her previous concern. Lucinda raced through the smoke filled foyer and headed to the left wing’s common reading area calling out to the children.
“Everyone, attention, please! I need you all to leave the building as quickly and orderly as possible.” Lucinda received only vacant looks from the children. Those who saw her earlier attempts to remove them from the library weren’t that easily fooled and looked back with contempt.
“NOW!” she shouted getting their attention.
The buildings ‘H’ design allowed for natural circulation of air through the library doors and into the larger areas on either side of the foyer. Large, vented glass panels high in the ceiling helped facilitate the flow and could be opened or closed to adjust the rate accordingly. It was perfect in summer allowing a steady flow of air to cool the building naturally, drawing the hotter air to the ceiling. The windier the day, the greater the airflow. Today was very windy.
The more observant kids saw smoke starting to billow from the central foyer. They got up very quickly and grabbed their schoolbags encouraging their friends to do the same. Before long all the children were grouped around Lucinda finally ready to listen and no longer the smart arses of earlier in the afternoon. The plume of smoke funnelling from the foyer grew larger and blacker and engulfed the doorway entirely. It was ominous looking and spewed through the small opening to fight its way into the comparatively cavernous space of the library’s main room.
There was no possibility the group would be exiting through there, so instead Lucinda quickly chose an exit located at the rear of the building. She assumed the same phenomenon was happening on the opposite side of the foyer and thankful the children were all in the one place. The fire alarm still wasn’t sounding. Ms Albright led the children single file to the rear of the library in a calm and orderly manner, hugging the western wall farthest from the fires origin. That proved difficult with so many chairs, tables and bookcases in the way placed nonlinearly to help create private reading pockets and to deflect sound. The layout was similar on the eastern wing making it equally difficult for anyone to escape.
It was chaotic among the thickening smoke and cries from the children but Lucinda seemed to be strong. Inside though she was as scared as the children. She’d trained for a fire emergency, however that was long ago with everything seemingly forgotten. Lucinda was acting on instinct now. Survival mode.
As the small party drew level with the foyer angry orange flames now replaced the smoke. They were menacing, leaping from the passageway in regular bursts then climbing up the walls far too easily. Their heat felt even from the other side of the large common room. If the smoke wasn’t scary enough the flames now made the situation very real and suddenly very urgent. Lucinda urged the children to move faster towards the exit, instructing them not to look back and to keep as low as possible. The smoke consumed all but the bottom three feet of the library space with its intensity overpowering. Breathing was difficult and visibility greatly reduced. The flames now swamped the entire outer wall of the administration offices all the way to the glass panels in the eves.
Lucinda was astonished by the fires ferocity and wondered again why the alarm wasn’t sounding. The ceiling mounted sprinkler system hadn’t activated either. It would be of little use now, the fire was too established, but it may have helped earlier. Given the symmetry of the building layout she assumed the same was happening on the opposite side of the library. The smoke. The flames.
The first child finally barged through the rear fire exit obscured behind a large bookcase providing some reprieve from the heat. One by one they left the inferno, Lucinda doubling back over the last part of their escape route to check no stragglers were left. Satisfied she was the only one in the building, Lucinda Albright turned to take one last look at her beloved library. Having worked there for over fifteen years she’d naturally become quite attached to the small library. Lucinda put her heart and soul into its function, making it representative of her and what she believed a community library should be. Reflecting on her time there, and the positivity brought to the community, Ms Albright wept as a shelving bay holding over one thousand books was consumed by the hungry red and orange flames.
Only when everyone was safely outside and gathered in a rear laneway did they hear the wail of emergency sirens in the distance. Lucinda walked the children through the narrow laneway and out to the courtyard at the front of the library.
Emergency response vehicles soon surrounded the small area and trained professionals took over the scene. Fire fighters began dousing the flames, ambulance officers attended to the children and police phoned their parents and cordoned off the area to the spectators gathering in droves.
Now a safe from the flames, Lucinda sat on a low garden wall while a paramedic checked her blood pressure and other vital signs demanding she keep an oxygen mask fitted securely over her mouth. Smoke inhalation could be very dangerous and although Lucinda proclaimed she was fine, the officer insisted.
Lucinda sadly watched parts of her library continue to burn as jets of water blasted the now collapsed roof, soaking the flames and leaving the wooden trusses to smoulder. Smoke soon made way for steam. The crowd had grown and rumours soon circulated as to the cause of the fire. The talk was wide spread and ranged from being deliberately lit to an electrical fault. It would take weeks for the truth to emerge and the extent of the fire fully known.