Posted by Nickathome on Thursday, April 14, 2005 at 9:35PM :
In Reply to: House fire last night posted by Frank USMC on Thursday, April 14, 2005 at 11:19AM :
Glad to hear you beat the fire before it took out your home.
We had a pot catch fire on our stove one time in our old house. I was outside talking over the fence to our neighbor. My wife then appeared and began talking with us. Suddenly we heard the kitchen smoke alarm go off. A few seconds go by before my wife realized she left the pot on the stove. She was heating milk and butter for mashed potatoes(ok I admit, I like instant mashed potatoes)on low heat, when it boiled over and ignited. I got to the house first and immediately went for the fire extinguisher. Without even thinking I quickly pulled the pin, aimed and fired a blast. The fire was out in seconds. We had a small amount of soot on the ceiling, and a bunch of white powder from the extinguisher to clean up, but the house suffered no damage. Two things saved us that day. 1. was an overzealous smoke alarm that although looked like it was 20 years old, worked flawlessly. 2. My quick actions and lack of panicking. My wife was a nervous wreck, and would not have been able to operate the fire extinguisher in her moment of panic. Since that time I make it a point to have several fire extinguishers around the home. After that day, I showed my wife how to operate the fire extinguisher properly. I don't think she'd be able to do it though because its obvious she panics in tense situations. Hopefully we'll never have to be put in the situation again where we'll have to find out.
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