not audio or computer related?

[karma]

things we take for granted. like smoke alarms a single 9v battery
saved my butt last nite. i had a electrical fire in my kitchen. started
in the back of the stove at 3 am worked it way up the wall. took out about half my kitchen. and man was it hot the old lady just wanted me to leave it. not likely so i put the light on to get a better look at it. no go smoke is so thick there is no light. so
i start throwing water on it bad idea it gets bigger. and with it
being a electical fire this was stupid buy this time im freaking out. im looking to loose everthing. i run in the hall just to find out the landlord was having problems with tendents riping off the fire ex so he but glass in the box instead of plastic. so
i rap my hand with my shirt and smash it. now i have a big chunk of glass in my hand dohh. finally get it out. total damage hmm

stove- toast
hand-stiches
walls-cracked drywall falling off
kitchen cabnets ash
without that 9v battery-priceless

[SY]

Coincidently, cooking is my other hobby, and my cooking partner is a fire captain. ANY kitchen, and frankly ANY electronics workshop, ought to have a real fire extinguisher in it. The extinguisher should be chosen with the idea of grease, solvent, and electrical fires. ABC powder extinguishers of a relatively compact size and price are easily available. No diyer should be without one.

Fire safety is just as important (more so, really) than electrical safety. A zap will just kill you, but a fire will kill your family.

Thanks for the reminder to all of us!

[UrSv]

...and a car should always be equipped with one as mine has for the last 15 years. Coming home a few months ago I see this dancing light further up the road. Getting closer I see some 20 people watching a trashcan fire eating its way up some scaffolding now reaching some 2.5 meters and closing in on some plastic nets. I put it out with my ext. enough to be able to push the burning stuff out in the street. 4 minutes later the fire brigade comes and that would have been half a house too late.

They do come in handy and it also got me a free beer in the next door pub.

Glad you caught it.

[Da5id4Vz]

Glad you and your family survived.

The landlord should be compensating you for the stitches; after all you did save his building.

Good to see that a little good Karma pays off.

I always change batteries in the detectors at the fall Daylight savings time change. I write the date on them too to remind me what I was doing. This all reminds me that I did just move into a new house and should really go ahead and replace the detectors. Eventually I will install dual powered devices that use both battery and AC power, but I need to make sure we are safe NOW.

Life and death can be just a few moments in these situations. The smoke detectors often are what provide that edge for survival.

[purplepeople]

Karma,

Good to hear you are relatively well. You should sit for awhile in your home and enjoy your listening to your stereo and with your un-injured arm around your sig other - you deserve it.

I also just put out a fire, not at home, but at work. Not today, but Tuesday morning. Someone comes to me, halfway across the office and says there's a fire in the screenprint shop. I get up to go look but I'm thinking, why didn't someone just get a fire extinguisher and put it out. I get there and see a little smoke oozing past the door. The extinguisher is right next to the door, so I grab it, hesitate, then poke my head around the door. I see the problem and back out. It's amazing how quickly you remember how to use these things. I re-poke my head and shoot it with the powder. I forgot how much powder there is in these things. Just to make sure, I shoot it again. I don't help them clean it up because not moments later I realize that if it had really caught on I would have been on fire instantly and the room would have gone up in about 10 seconds.

After a few minutes I am collected enough to look over the scene. Our screenprint shop had set up these table fans to dry wet screens. The extension cord is a flimsy two prong (no ground) of about 120V/10A rating. They have 3 fans plugged in and the whole thing is hanging in the air just behind some solvents in metal cans. Sparks must have flown due to the stressed cable so we get a small electrical fire of the plastic. If the fire had gotten to the solvents, they would have gone up like a molotov with me not 3 feet from them.

If we really had a moment to think about it, we would run.

:)ensen.

PS: I always recommend at least a 5lb or 10lb extinguisher. The little hand-held units are good for about 1/2 squirt. You put yourself in more danger because while you try to fight the fire with one it gets bigger and more dangerous. The big cans can actually put enough powder on it to smother it instantly.