Hi all. this may be old hat to some of you experienced folks, but I found the following interesting.
I'd always wanted to really try using an extinguisher on a "real" fire. I wanted to have some idea if I might stand a chance of doing usefull fire fighting if i drop my soldering iron on a pile of paper or some such. However I didn't want to set up a test without professional help just in case things should get out of hand. I found that a niece's new boy friend is a professional fire fighter. When I met Joe last year, almost the first thing I asked him after a little introductory chatter was whether he might set up a test fire somewhere and suggest an extinguisher for me to try. This was a year ago and I' hadn't seen Joe since. This thanksgiving, we went to my brother's 5 acre place in the country and Joe was there. I hadn't mentioned my request over the year and figured if he was interested, he'd bring it up. I wasn't going to ask again. Almost the first thing i heard was " Tom I've got an extinguisher for you." So, Friday afternoon, we went out to the middle of a gravel coverred area and Joe got hold of an old cardboard box and a heap of waiste paper. He really wanted to add a mix of gasoline and diesel, but everyone else thought that was going a bit far. He had an out of date "dry chemical" extinguisher, the type with a pair of handles you squeeze together and a 1 foot hose you aim at the fire. After the fire was going well enough I could readilly feel it from a few feet away, I held the extinguisher in my left hand, and followed his instructions. they suggest a memory trick using "PASS" Pull, Aim, Squeeze Sweep. Pull, means pull the safety pin, a rod with a circular ring at one end that goes through the top handle of the extinguisher and keeps it from being squeezed down when not in use. Aim, of course means take the end of the little hose and aim it at the base of the fire. Squeeze, press the two handles together. Sweep, means sweep the stream of chemical back and forth across the fire. My experience suggests that moving in a flattened oval so the stream moves "up and down" a bit as well as across where you think the fire is, may be a good bet if you can't see the flames at all. Not surprisingly, I had little trouble knocking this relatively minor fire down. Joe had me stop firing several times while he stirred up the fire again to give me several tries. I did have the tendency to knock over the box with the stream of chemical, but this would probably not happen in a more real world situation. One might think about whether you might blow burning material away and spread a fire with a strong stream of stuff. This would further encourage me to believe in the vertical oval movement strategy. In a real fire situation, you don't stop spraying your extinguisher's contents till the thing is empty. Even if you're pretty sure the fire is out, the policy is to empty the device just to be sure. Of course any test like this can't be totally real,, it was controlled and I knew what was going to be burned and where. And, of course I wasn't in a panic. However I believe I at least found i may be able to knock down a fire to the extent that I should consider trying an extinguisher if one is available. Of course there a lot of other strategies to fire fighting depending on what's burning, E.G. if it's a grease fire in a pan, just putting a lid on the pan may be enough to do the job. |Dryy chemical extinguishers are good for most fires, the disadvantage of these types is that they leave a powdery mess over everything. [CO2 carbondioxide extinguishers are good for most fires but of course do realease a quantity of co2 into the atmosphere. I don't know of other disadvantages of this type. There are pressurized water units but they should never be used on electrical, grease or flamable liquid fires, so probably aren't a good bet. Hailon is expensive, as are it's new substitutes, and are good for almost all fires, but one must be carefull to get out of the way of the cloud of gas since it makes breathing impossible. I'd suggest, if you work with anything that might go wrong and cause a fire, that you may want to meet a friendly fireman and set up a similar test for your selves just so you'll have a feel for how it all goes. Everyone with a home containing a kitchen should have, and maintain, an appropriate extinguisher where you can get at it. Contact your local fire fighters to find out what local code says is appropriate for you. Of course if you have a fire, whether you try fighting it your self or not, call the local fire department. Even if you think it's out, you want professional help to be sure there is no way it could spread and something you didn't catch is still going. Hope this encourages you to try something for your selves and learn more about what you can do. Besides, since I had a pro on hand, it was fun and helped build a good connection with a possible future family member. tom Fowle
