He did not pretend to know where it came from.

A firefighter called to the captain from farther along the street.

She listened, turned, and told another crew to move people away from that side.

The activity spread beyond our driveway.

Until then, I had been imagining a problem inside our basement.

A faulty connection, perhaps, something that would be isolated and repaired while the neighbors watched for ten minutes.

Now a man across the road was helping his wife into a coat.