Meeting the Toronto City Fire Department

So we had a very wonderful opportunity to meet the Toronto City Fire Department last night, as they ended up coming to our apartment with ax in hand ready to break down our door. All over a slightly burnt pizza :-) I had gone shopping earlier in the day while Wil was doing rope training and decided to surprise him by getting a pizza to have ready when he got home. I got Dellisio which is Canada's brand of DiGiorno, even has the same slogan, "It's not delivery, it's Dellisio." :-) Well, the oven is a bit different than what I am used to so by the time Wil came home it was not quite ready. Once our oven indicated that it was ready to have the pizza placed in I read the directions once more to make sure everything was good, 400 degrees for 26 minutes. The 26 minutes was a bit strange to me considering that at home when I would make a pizza I would cook it for 15 minutes, but I decided to follow the directions because, hey who knows, pizza could be different in Canada. So in the pizza went and the timer was set to 26 minutes and we sat down to watch The Big Bang Theory while we waited for our wonderful sausage and pepperoni pizza to be done.

Wil decided to take a little nap and I was looking on Pinterest for anything new to add to recipes or crafts. After 26 minutes and an episode of Big Bang our timer went off for our pizza, Wil was still sound asleep on the couch after a hard day's rehearsal so I went to get the pizza ready. As I walked over nothing was wrong, no smell of burnt pizza, no smoke, nothing. Until I opened the oven door. Smoke came pouring out of the oven and through the burners like a gust of wind as the smell of burnt pizza suddenly filled the apartment. As I sounded my disappointment loudly Wil wakes up and comes to inspect the damage. The pizza is a little bit more brown than what we are used to but nothing horrible. That's when the smoke alarm went off. Wil goes to wave off the smoke from the alarm while I grab an oven mitt to remove our crisp pizza. Suddenly a second alarm goes off as the whole building is alerted to a potential fire. I am waving the oven mitt around while Wil has removed the smoke detector and is pushing any button to get it to turn off. For about a minute we are trying to turn this thing off. Setting off the smoke detector is no new thing to us as over the years we have burnt popcorn, cooked hamburgers indoors, and other mishaps. However, no matter how much smoke has filled our apartment we have always been able to turn off the alarm and open a few windows and everything is fine, and the other apartments are not exposed to the horribly shrill noise that will fill our apartment...not this time.

After we have been trying to turn this fire alarm off the speaker in our ceiling turns on, "Hello." I see this as my golden opportunity to tell security that all is fine, so the inner blond that I am I answer the voice in the ceiling. "Hi, It's just a burn pizza. There's noth..." I am interrupted as I realize that I am speaking to no one and the voice says "A fire alarm has been sounded on the twelfth floor, please stay in your apartments and out of the stairwells, the fire department is on its way." Wil and I just stare at each other as we are both thinking, you have got to be kidding me. I tell Wil to call security and tell them everything is fine as we here the sirens in the distance. The alarms have come back on keeping everyone informed that there is still a potential danger in the building.

Wil gets a hold of security to tell them that everything is fine, it's just a little burnt pizza. But they inform him that there is nothing we can do, the fire department has to come and inspect everything! They tell Wil how to turn off the alarm in our apartment so at least the shrill noises have been reduced to only one shrill alarm. I go unlock the door and open the balcony door and the window and continue fanning out the smoke with my Finding Nemo blanket as Wil informs me that two fire trucks and an ambulance are parked outside our building. About a minute and a half after Wil talks to security there is a sharp knock at our door, "Come in!" I say as a fireman opens a door to reveal two more men one with a very scary looking ax raised, ready to break down the door if it was locked. I begin to explain that everything is fine and point to our brown pizza on the counter as they look around and take notes. The fireman who entered first asked me if we fell asleep or what, I proceed to tell him that we just got a pizza and cooked it at 400 for 26 minutes. "WHAT?!" He says, "26 minutes! You should sue that company." He is at least smiling and doesn't seem upset at the fact that they came out here for a burn pizza. They proceed to ask if I burnt myself as the one with the ax checks the oven and pizza. I tell them I am fin and Wil asks if this happens often and they reply "Oh yea." We then ask if it is normal for the fire department to come for a little burnt pizza and they explain that in a high rise building if the smoke alarm goes off, no matter what the reason is, they have to come. It could be a burn pizza or a burning mattress. After about 3 minutes they leave, making comments on weather or not we should get another pizza or plow through the brown thing that sits on our counter.

After they leave we decide to inspect our dinner, it is still in the good category so we eat it as Wil proceeds to tell me not to tell anyone in the cast! We had a party later in the night to watch Smash at our place so there would be cast mates coming over. I agreed and let it go until 9:45 when everyone came over. After munching on snacks for a while someone says, "So what happened with the fire alarm? It started on your floor, right?" I turn bright red and start to turn away as they all figure out it was us! Voices of "I knew it was someone from our group" and "You guys did it?!" sounded in our apartment. So we explained how it was only over a pizza and we tried to turn off the alarm. Everyone was laughing as a few of the girls shared how they thought it was them as they were cooking at the same time and they also talked back to the voice in the ceiling. One girl was even in the stairwell with her jacket, ipad, and purse ready to leave. I continued to change various shades of red as the stories were being told of the event. Luckily for me Smash came on and the subject was forgotten.

So, that is the very long and embarrassing story of how the cook burnt a simple frozen pizza and summoned the fire department. I'm sure there are many more adventures awaiting us here in Toronto.

P.S. Wil's cast mate Stacey took the picture :-)