Posted: 12/21/2007 6:17:39 PM EDT
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Posted in this forms as it applies to my preps. To much effort on the fun stuff this year and not enough to the mudane. I check my fire extinguishers once a year. When doing this years check back in July the extinguisher in the laundry room was borderline. When some one set fire to the Palm tree in the front yard today that was the first extinguisher I grabbed. This started a true comedy of errors in motion. 1. The first fire extinguisher was dead. 2. the second fire extinguisher was to small for the amount the fire had grown from the first one 3. The front yard hose was to short to reach the tree in the cornor of the yard. 4. The splice on the hose broke at the spigot. Of course this resulted in a wet plastic junction to the spigot. 5. the wet spigot was to tight to loosen by hand., at least I knew where the slip joints where. 6. Running in to the back yard to get that hose let the fire get even bigger. 7. It was only at this point that we decided to call the fire department as the fire was getting beyond the small little thing it was. 8. The first hose from the back yard was also to short to get to the tree but was at least long enough to get water on the fire. 9. When I put the second hose on it kept kinking up and not letting water through. Lessons learned or reinforced. Just because a fire extinguisher is useable now does not mean it will be in six months, check them and replace them when they start to go bad. A 2 ½ lbs fire extinguisher is not big enough. Know exactly where your tools are. Good tools are a must. Emergency services are just minutes away when seconds count (and it physics not anything else that causes this.) |
| find you a 2.5gal rechargeable fire extinguisher. you can find them all over. you fill it with 2.5 gal(give or take) and then charge with a compressor. has a normal tire style fitting on it. they work great and we carry several on the engine. you can find them that use foam but they are not nearly as abundant. |
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A basic rule of non-professional fire fighters. Call the FD first, and then try to put out the fire. The few minutes you spent fumbling around could have been costly, ie your house, garage burned down. I bet you wasted 5-10 minutes fumbling around. Those few minutes when the fire is small is very critical. Dry chemical extinguisher should be service according to the manufacturer's recommendations. The reason is that they pack down real hard over time, and you much fluff the powder around like fluffing your comforter. |
I agree. I find the H2O kind at the flea mkts for $10-$20. Sometimes the o-rings need replaced. |
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You should have at least 1-10 pound extingtuisher in your kitchen, and one in the garage (if you have a garage). Anything smaller than that is not recommended. Preferably one on every level of your home and one in each work area like a workbench or garage. It should also be the proper class: "A" for ordinary combustibles (like paper/wood), "B" for flamable liquids (like gas/oil), and "C" for electrically charged fires. You should know how to use it. remember the acronym "P.A.S.S." P: Pull the pin A: Aim the nozzle at the base of the fire closest to yourself S: Squeeze the handle S: Sweep the nozzle back and forth Also extingishers are meant as a tool to buy you time to get out of the house. If you have a fire and you use an extinguisher on it the next thing you should do is get out of the house and call 911 from a neighbors phone or cell phone. Fires can and do sometimes flare back up after being knocked down by an extinguisher. Also dry chem extinguishers put out a nasty cloud or dust that you don't want to breath. Get everyone quickly and safely out of the house and call the pro's to come make sure it's out. That's what you pay us for. Also change the batteries in your smoke detectors and check them regularly. You should change the batteries whenever you change your clocks every spring/fall with DST. Stay safe... |
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The hoses work better if you install a frost free (even if you live in miami) hydrant upstream of the pressure regulator. They have so much lower pressure loss, particularly above 15 gpm. With one I can shoot water to the peak of my 2 story house standing 4' below the first floor. (I am feeding it with an 1-1/4 pipe). A couple of other tips- With the 2.5 gallon water units, add a few drops of dishwashing liquid- it will wet the water. It may violate the UL approval, so only do this at home. If it has a risk of being frozen (say in a barn), add a "loaded stream charge" a box of powder added to the liquid which make it more effective as well as reduces the freezing temperature. On vehicle mounted dry chemical extingushers- shake once a year to keep the powder loose- While unlikely they have been reports of the powder getting packed enough to reduce the preformance of the extingusher (Probally in off road applications, forklifts used outside,etc.) Finally make sure everyone in your house can handle the extingusher- A 30 lb dry chemical is a wonderful fire fighting tool, but can you 12 yo daughter handle it if she sets the waste basket on fire? |
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In response to some of the comments Thank you all for taking the time to respond. The high quality red hose is on today’s shopping list, as is the 2.5 gal rechargeable extinguishers. I am going to look end to the frost free pressure regulators. Great ideas thank you Although the amount of time I spent fumbling around was closer to 2-3 minutes, and I am counting time dilation, the point is well made. Normally the assignments here are that I respond to what is happening and she calls 911 this broke down. The reasons for the breakdown are two fold. It did not appear to be worth calling 911 for originally, as it was just a small tongue of flame that would have been easily taken care if the first extinguisher worked. The second part was that the assignments broke down in that she was trying to help me react rather picking up the phone and waiting as we had discussed for bump in the night scenarios. To fix this from now on flames equals 911 call no matter how small it seems. We are still unsure exactly how to fix the fact that she was responding rather than communicating but are more aware of the issue and that may be the best we can do. Finally find a reason to regret that we do not observe daylight savings. But will go with checking before the Christmas tree goes up and when the fishing gear comes out. I have heard this advice before but had just gone with once a year. One interesting thing that occurred to me after I wrote the initial post is that several people came out to see what was happening but only two of them reacted to the situation. The first was someone driving by that gunned his engine and went on to the sidewalk that had kids in the area to get around the stopped cars. The other was a neighbor that went and got a fire extinguisher. This neighbor lived further away than two others at least one of which had to walk buy a fire extinguisher to get a better view. Of 10 to 15 people that saw what was happening one reacted and that was to slow, but still good on him. |
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2 1/2 pound powder extinguisher is plenty big for the kitchen (get a BC NOT an ABC for the kitchen), but seriously inadequate for all but the smallest class A fires. I have 10lb ABC powder extinguishers strategically located but I also have a couple of the previously mentioned 2 1/2 gallon water extinguishers which would be the first thing I'd grab for an outdoor class A fire. We end up using them from time to time around the farm and the self-refill capability is great. Out of habit I glance at extinguisher gauges often when I walk past them so mine get checked very regularly. IMHO you should have called FD when the first extinguisher failed to be effective. |