Smoking is smoky!?

I was living in a house with 5 floors and a tiny elevator. My daughter was not even a year old so I had her in the pram in the elevator. We could almost not fit into the elevator as it was so small. One day we were going to see some friends who had a photography shop around the corner to my house. We had just been in their shop for about 5 minutes after leaving the elevator and then we heard fire engines and then saw them. We thought where is the fire? So, we turned around the corner to check it out and the fire was in our house! Oh my God! There was black smoke coming out of the building and it smelled really bad. We could not enter the house so we had to stay outside until we got the ok from the head of the firebrigade. So, what had happened? Above our floor there was an evening school for teenagers. They had thrown cigarettes in under the elevator. On the ground floor under the elevator the landlord had put old car tyres who had started to burn. This kind of smoke I have heard is very dangerous. What would have happened if I and my daughter had been trapped in the elevator - we would most certainly have died.  When we could go back into the apartment Everything was covered in black soot. We could not live there until it had been cleaned....and it smelled really bad. So, who´s house had to burn well my house of course....