"Fire!" Topic

Sitting in my office I thought I heard something like electricity short-circuiting. It was coming from over near the window, so I walked over while checking electrical appliances on the way. When I got to the window I saw a flash and decided it must be coming from outside or above. It could have been someone welding, but it is lashing down outside.

I left the factory and walked upstairs to another factory unit. There was nothing on electrical in that part of the building, so I went back to my office.

After a few minutes the power went off – darkness. I can see the factory from where I sit, on a mezzanine level. There was no fire down there. A couple of minutes later I heard the sound of fire engines, getting louder. They seemed to be pulling up in the loading area, so I rushed outside.

The fire engines had passed and gone to an adjacent building. Lucky this time!

We had a fire drill a week ago and then recharged all the fire extinguisher after that. So we are in good shape for a fire. Last time that happened in the building people went nuts. I hope I'm here if anything does happen.

When I was a dispatcher at AAA, the old tube radio was replaced by a digital one. In the middle of dealing with a call I heard a POOF, smelled ozone, turned and saw smoke coming from the back of it. I unplugged it and called maintenance and the manager.
We got the old tube radio back and it was a few more years before it was replaced again.

Odd that the tube radio had a better range and clarity than the early digital ones.

wow…

gray!

Well, I've walked in after one dust collector fire (Iron Oxide no less), had our metal finishing machine decide to turn into a stinky barbecue cooker for steel a couple of times and seen a few m few minor welding fires. All in a day's work. Fortunately, things are getting more dull in that respect.

When I worked in government we had a big meeting and they brought in lunch (oh happy day--now I can work through my lunch hour!) and the trays were kept warm with sternocans. After lunch, the temp went to extinguish the sterno cans by using slippery salad tongs to stack the cans, one on top of the other (snuffing out the fire).

All was well until a can slipped and the flaming sterno splashed onto the (plastic) rug and started burning. So she stomped on it and then set her (plastic) shoe on fire. Eventually all was extinguished and no one was hurt. Then we all got sent for fire extinguisher training and the department banned sterno-heated trays. It would have been easier and cheaper to fire the temp… .