I had been smelling smoke for about ten minutes; I had no idea of its origin but I called it in anyway, as a good citizen should. Only to find out this morning that the smoke was probably wafting in from a massive church fire about 40 miles away!
:smack:
Sometime back in the mid-80s (real precise, I know), we were living in northern West Virginia. There were some huge forest fires in the southern part of the state that summer, and for days you could see and smell the smoke in the air from fires 150-200 miles away. Strange.
“minorly injured”…I know I’m tired, but is that in anyway correct? (Last couple lines of the link)
We’d much rather come out and find you’d called because of smoke from another incident than have to perform rescue operations a few hours later when the situation is untenable. No :smack: is necessary. 
Long time ago, spending a summer in Montana (near Yellowstone), there was a huge fire burning up large chunks of Alaska. Yes we could smell it. You could see it too. The mountain air looked like the L.A. basin for a week or so.
My apartment was full of smoke one day and we called the fire dept only to find out that the apartment two floors down burned some eggs :smack:
Several years ago, while driving home one Saturday morning, I saw smoke coming from a vacant lot between homes on my street. I stopped the car and craned my neck for a moment to better ascertain what I was seeing, but didn’t leave the car to investigate any further on foot, opting to get home ASAP and call 911. The smoke appeared to come from a spot that was on a slope slanting slightly downwards and away from the street – a spot not readily visible from my vantage point. It looked as if some neighborhood kids had just started a small fire in the brush near the creek, and I reported as much to the 911 dispatcher.
After calling 911, I ran back to the lot and was mortified to realize that the smoke was actually coming from the big BBQ pit in a yard next to the vacant lot. :o The smoke was still drifting laterally into the thick brush and rising from that point.
The fire truck arrived very quickly. Embarrassed and apologetic, I explained why I had called them. Well, they couldn’t have been more gracious or understanding, and explained that they’d MUCH rather get a few false alarms than be confronted with a fire that was raging out of control and threatening people’s lives because somebody had seen smoke but had not bothered to report it, or didn’t report it quickly enough.
I did that once, too, when the stairwell to my last apartment was full of smoke. Turned out the people from #4 (in an 8-unit building) had gone out and left a hotplate on.
What’s funny is we did the same thing once during our first few months here. Guess it didn’t get bad enough to warrent the FD getting involved though. 
Please, folks! It is NOT a mistake to call 911 when you smell smoke. The careless cooking about which you’re embarrassed for calling is sometimes a far more serious situation.
This becomes dangerous in apartment complexes because time after time the fire alarm activation is a system malfunction or careless cooking, and people become conditioned to disregard the warning systems, and their own better judgement.
Then, one time out of 100, it isn’t a little deal, it’s not a system malfunction, and instead of the residents having gotten out when the bells first sounded and they could all have exited under their own power, I roll into the complex with heavy fire showing and have to call for a second alarm assignment in an attempt to get people out alive, and not hurt my own crews in the process.
If you smell smoke, get out. Call 911 from a cell phone, and don’t be afraid to holler FIRE on your way out.
Given the choice of some soot on my dignity as opposed to my cadaver, I’ll take the former.
Darn right. This is why I made both reports, especially the one for the smoke-filled stairwell.
I lived out in the sticks for years and one day while driving down the road I saw out of the corner of my eye some flames coming out of the side of someone’s house. I pulled a u turn and pulled in to see a guy working on his large grill which was flaring up next to his house.
I don’t feel like too much of an idiot because if it had been something bad and he wasn’t home nobody would’ve seen it at all… That, and he said I wasn’t the first person to quickly turn around thinking his place was burning down. (he moved the grill not long after that)