Bergen's Burning...

Sat in work on Saturday afternoon - yes I know its sad but there is the licensing round deadline coming up and its all pretty busy. Anyway sat there and my phone rings. Its Lindsey and she says
"Where is Dan?" (Her boyfriend)
"He's not answering his phone and he needs to come home NOW!"
Whoops thinks I, the boy sounds like his in trouble... So I say
"I'll go and see if he's in the office, anything urgent?"
"Yes! The house next door is on fire!"
"Oh, I guess it is kinda urgent then. Have you called the fire brigade?"
She says that there are already 2 engines there and flames coming out the roof.
It sounds bad so I go and find Dan and send him home.

An hour later I am walking across town and I see the hillside lit up and smoke pouring out the roof. A serious fire then. There is some pics here and a not very good video here

Fortunately they were fine and their flat was untouched. It made me think though. There has been a lot of fires in Bergen this year. At least 5 really big ones and lots of smaller ones. Despite being the wettest place in Europe, it's still a firemans nightmare, lots of wooden houses, very narrow, steep streets and maybe even a bunch of arsonists on the loose. Its amazing the city has survived so long.

Found a great website a few years back which I moved to Bergen that documents the history of Bergen and the fires that have been such a big part of that story. Click down the date scale on the side of the map and see the major fires that have hit the town. It also shows how the city grew of the last 1000 years - pretty neat.