The windows had blown out and smoke and flames were gushing up from the first floor. A big boy went past with a sweaty face and his eyes glazed over, grinning at the fire. Firemen burst out the front door in clouds of smoke with breathing masks on. They’d bashed the door down and gone in on top of it, but now the hoses were on and another fire engine was coming round by the main road. Policemen were moving people back from where the hoses and puddles of water were spreading on the road. An old lady stopped beside us on our side of the pavement, looking up with the light on her chin and her glasses – the flashing blue lights of the engine coming up the street which made a squawk as it switched its siren off and the blue lights of the ambulance as it turned in from the top of the street. No one was in, the house was empty. People had been lighting fires in the buildings because they were knocking them down anyway. But this was the closest it had come to us. It was Danny’s old house over the road. More firemen jumped down in yellow helmets with dark baggy clothes on, and one of them that had gone in was bent over coughing with his mask off and shaking his head at what they were asking him, so he got patted on the back and left to get his breath back. His hair was plastered on his forehead and he looked greasy and sweaty and dirty from his neck up. There were gusts of air coming along the road you could breathe, and then you got mouthfuls of smoke and bits of ash and soot that were blowing. That boy came back, but there were two of them, they were trying to get as near as they could. The other one was swaggering with his shoulders back like he knew all about being a fireman with his feet in the puddles and his hair blowing about in the fire. There was a gang of them going round the policemen and the fire engines and running in and out the crowd to get a good look at the fire. The crowd was growing and more policemen came in cars to keep everyone back – the fire was swirling up black and orange on to the street with hoses pouring water in through the windows.