i’m not a very religious man. but today i had to think about an old prayer, that says (translated) :
give me the strength to change, what can be changed, the patience to endure, what can’t be changed - and the wisdom to recognize, what is what.
everybody, my wife included, thought me crazy for having seven big fire extinuishers standing around everywhere.
while i was sitting contently and surfing the net, i heard some loud cracks. trying to locate the source is not easy, wearing hearing-aids.
but eventually sparks raining from the ceiling told me, where the sounds came from.
near the fire division wall, where the main cables cross from my hobby-room into the house and for the main fuses, the wooden ceiling was burning.
called the fire dept. , told my wife to cut the switches at the meter at the street.
put up a ladder, climbed up with an BC - CO² extinguisher and started to cool down the ceiling.
when that was empty, my wife had the next one ready. so i sprayed on. seemingly with little effect.
the flames got smaller, when hit, but recovered quickly. (ambient temperature at that time was well over 100F/40C)
so i had to change tactic. some pieces of burnt ceiling bords were falling.
i took an extinguisher with ABC powder
(i must say, i don’t like the powder extinguishers. they are so messy)
when that extinguisher was empty, there was just a little bit smoke left, a hole in the ceiling and the whole house full of yellowish dust. and the first firetruck arrived.
that was 13 minutes after the call to the fire-dept. (what is good enouh for volunteers to first reach the firehouse, then dress up and arrive on site.
three men and a woman, no officers.
i told them, which corrugated roof-sheets to rip up to control the scene from above.
Lady Luck: they decided, that arriving quick is more important than to wait for superiors. and, as their former commander, they had no problems to follow my orders.
as it turned out, i was extremly lucky. the CO² i sprayed at the ceiling entered through a vent to the other side of the “fire division wall” cooled and suffocated the burning styrofoam insulation.
sawing off the blackened parts of the ceiling, fastening the burnt corrugated sheets, covering everything with a tarpaulin - and about 40 minutes after the alert, 8 firefighters went back to the firehouse.
but not before the actual firechief had teased me, that i had founded the fire dept. only to protect my own house. i’m afraid, that at he next board meeting i will get a lot more teasing.
power company sent me a tecnican, who separated the lines of house and supermarket, so that i now have laid extension cords to the fridge and the computer.
the good: i don’t have to sleep in a tent tonight. only in a dirty bed.
the bad: we’ll have the house full of workers to repair everything.
the ugly: not only the furniture, but hundreds of my figures for the layout are now covered in yellow dust.
the funny: my wife already mentioned two more places, where an extinguisher might be handy…
why did i write this?
the pretext, is to warn you people to have enough extinguishers at home. the first 15 minutes of a fire situation decide the extent of the damage.
but in truth, my wife sleeps comfortably with air condition in the house of her sister and i am just so full of adrealine, that i have to tell about it.
the dates in the pics are compliment to a broken camera. they were taken sunday okt 6 of 24
