Fire!
In the event of a fire, is your family ready? Mine wasn't. Today, I was practicing piano, my brother was upstairs, and my mom was roasting peanuts. She got a phone call from a family friend, and since I was playing piano, she went outside to talk to said friend. The neighbors were having a barbecue, so I didn't notice the telltale sign of fire -- smoke. It wasn't until an orange light illuminated the dining room, that I suspected something was wrong. I went to the kitchen to investigate, and what do you know? There it was. A fire that started from the stove, and licked the top of the kitchen ceiling. You can probably figure out what my expression was... "HOLY FU*#. MOOOOOOMMMM. CHARLLIEEEE. FIREEEEEEEEE. DROP, DUCK AND ROLL!" Adrenaline was rushing through my veins, and I didn't even bother correcting myself (it's actually stop, drop, and roll). My brother responded with an irritated "What?" until I said "FIREEEEEEE." He thundered down the stairs and immediately started looking for the fire extinguisher. My mom came dashing out from the garage and ran to the stove, flipping the burning pot onto the kitchen floor and then put another pot on top of it to try and stop the flames. In the mean time, my brother and I were desperately searching for our fire extinguisher. We went to try and find it in the garage, but to no avail. Eventually, my mom found it behind the microwave, in a remote corner of our kitchen, but by then, the fire was already out. Black smoke was creeping around on the ceiling, and my mom instructed my brother and I to open all the windows in our house. After that, we inspected the damage that had been caused by the fire. The cabinet above our stove was blackened, as was the wall next to the stove. On the ceiling, the light was burnt a little, but all-in-all, there wasn't any devastating damage. No one was harmed, and nothing valuable was destroyed (besides our family dignity). This was really a time bomb, waiting to explode. Our fire alarm had ran out of batteries about five-years ago, and no one had bothered to put new batteries in. Our fire extinguisher was hidden in a remote place, inaccessible in the event of an even larger fire. Let this be a learning experience for all of us. No matter how careful you usually are, it's human nature to mess up sometimes. In the event of a fire, be prepared.- Never leave the stove unattended.
- Make sure your fire alarm works every month by testing it to make sure the batteries aren't dead.
- Make sure your fire extinguisher is in a place that is easily accessible when you need it.
- Make sure you know how to use the fire extinguisher. XD
This entry was posted on March 26, 2008 at 07:24 PM and is filed under Personal,.
By Holly · on March 26, 2008
There is something called being prepared… lol
It should serve as a reminder to all of us to being alert and ready.
I guess you were lucky nothing really happened.
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Wow, your lucky it wasn’t any worse. I don’t even have a fire alarm in my house, lol.
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(!!)
Oh. My. God.
Hah, my fire extinguisher is in the garage.
Close one, you’re so lucky that it didn’t destroy your house.
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Yikes. A very similar thing happened to a friend of mine a few years ago. It was a grease fire, and when she tried to put it out with water, it only got worse. SCARY.
I don’t have a fire alarm… :-/
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Baking soda/powder would of worked perfectly…
Who doesn’t like to play with fire?
!
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Haha, I’m well prepared. The fire alarm at my house went off when my grandma burned a piece of toast.
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That’s terrible!
Lucky you that no one was hurt and you didn’t lose anything important. I hope that you guys are better prepared from now on - and of course, I wish you no more fires in the future!
I experience something like that about a year and a half ago. I was sleeping and my family was in the living room when the TV is suddenly on fire. The TV! Who would have thought? Our fire alarm never had batteries, our family was “lucky” that it happened in the room where my family was, otherwise probably no one would have noticed on time. Our fire extinguisher was where it was supposed to be so it was easy to find, but no one knew how to use it! I woke up with all the screaming and went to the living room to find my mom and sisters fighting with the fire extinguisher. Finally, my mom unplugged the TV (the cables and the power outlet were all very near the fire, but she just stuck her hand and pulled all the cables out of the outlet). When the TV was unplugged, my mom and lifted the TV (still on fire!) and carried it outside, where we dropped it and poured water onto it. Meanwhile, my sisters put out the fire of the wooden TV cabinet by pouring water.
It was stressful, but fortunately no one was hurt. We did lose our TV and TV cabinet though :P
I’m glad that it wasn’t any worse than that. Our fire alarm goes off if there’s just a little smoke in the kitchen. It’s very sensitive. We have more than one fire extinguisher too. One is under the kitchen sink (a very convenient place).
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Scary.
Hopefully, there won’t be a next time for you, but if there is, I’m sure your family will be prepared.
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Oh wow! It’s a good thing you’re all okay; that must’ve been quite scary! It’s always good to be prepared. Unfortunately, we only have a fire alarm, and as for a fire extinguisher, it’s anybody’s guess where that is. Although after reading this, I think I’ll go on a scavenger hunt. There are so many things to be wary of in this world; sometimes I think it’s a wonder I’m still alive!
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Wow, you’re lucky it didn’t do any more damage and you and your family weren’t hurt.
I don’t think we own a fire extinguisher… *goes off to hunt down dad to tell him to get one*
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Scary! I’m glad there was no major damage from the fire!
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