'They are worried we will point them in the wrong direction or use the wrong extinguishers,' he said. 'But if you are trapped in a burning building, you will work out how to use one.'
Citizen using a deepfryer suffers a greasefire in the kitchen. Citizen goes "OMG!", and throws water on the fire, thereby floating lots of burning oil around the kitchen, spreading the fire.
This is what "working out how to use one" at the time of a fire looks like. Trial-and-error learning, when the cost of error is major property damage, injury, or death? Not acceptable.
Friend Clueless Citizen Who Figures He'll Learn When His House Is On Fire is a threat to his fellow residents.
I approve of the initiative to give people a bit of training; honestly, two or three hours on a Saturday morning goes a LONG way (years and years).
I had to learn how to use fire extinguishers when I worked in a shop, but I normally forget this and assume everyone knows how to use them because, y'know, easy.
But apparently not.
I'm guessing given the area there's another unspoken reason: idiots use the fire extinguishers to prat around and squirt each other.
Dorset, making the rest of SW England look clever for 300 years.
Sure, mistreating a grease fire is bad. But I also don't buy the alternative of evacuating the building and letting the fire do its thing for fifteen minutes while the professionals arrive and set up. That is just a guarantee that no urban fire will fail to become catastrophic.
I don't know what kind of fires they have in England, but what doesn't an ABC extinguisher work on? Unless your building frame is made out of magnesium, monoammonium phosphate is an effective retardant, and if the UK doesn't use it (as wiki might be telling me), then doi. Also, to repeat, if you don't want dumb people pouring water on a grease or electrical fire, then taking the proper extinguisher out of the hallway is a bad move.
Perhaps the most persuasive reason to get rid of fire extinguishers is so that morons won't fight a fire that they should be evacuating from. So if you can't stand to educate people, then maybe make the fire extinguishers small enough that they will obviously only put out small fires. And then grow a pair and educate people anyway.
My personal bugaboo are people who have a fire, and go for the extinguisher *without calling 911*.
Dude, you are NOT equipped to determine if that fire is going to go out or not, and you are not equipped to determine if that fire is going to stay out, and if you're wrong about the effectiveness of the extinguisher, you're going to let the fire get a lot worse.
Dammit, 911 hates false alarms, but they hate not getting real alarms MORE, and you're much better off telling the nice firemen "OH GOD MY LIVING ROOM IS ON FIRE PSSSSSH PSSSSSSSH PSSSSSH OH HEY I THINK IT'S OUT"
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-03 03:32 am (UTC)I mean, it makes perfect sense, but still. Wow.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-03 03:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-03 02:19 pm (UTC)Citizen using a deepfryer suffers a greasefire in the kitchen. Citizen goes "OMG!", and throws water on the fire, thereby floating lots of burning oil around the kitchen, spreading the fire.
This is what "working out how to use one" at the time of a fire looks like. Trial-and-error learning, when the cost of error is major property damage, injury, or death? Not acceptable.
Friend Clueless Citizen Who Figures He'll Learn When His House Is On Fire is a threat to his fellow residents.
I approve of the initiative to give people a bit of training; honestly, two or three hours on a Saturday morning goes a LONG way (years and years).
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-03 03:33 pm (UTC)I had to learn how to use fire extinguishers when I worked in a shop, but I normally forget this and assume everyone knows how to use them because, y'know, easy.
But apparently not.
I'm guessing given the area there's another unspoken reason: idiots use the fire extinguishers to prat around and squirt each other.
Dorset, making the rest of SW England look clever for 300 years.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-03 03:44 pm (UTC)I don't know what kind of fires they have in England, but what doesn't an ABC extinguisher work on? Unless your building frame is made out of magnesium, monoammonium phosphate is an effective retardant, and if the UK doesn't use it (as wiki might be telling me), then doi. Also, to repeat, if you don't want dumb people pouring water on a grease or electrical fire, then taking the proper extinguisher out of the hallway is a bad move.
Perhaps the most persuasive reason to get rid of fire extinguishers is so that morons won't fight a fire that they should be evacuating from. So if you can't stand to educate people, then maybe make the fire extinguishers small enough that they will obviously only put out small fires. And then grow a pair and educate people anyway.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-03 03:48 pm (UTC)Dude, you are NOT equipped to determine if that fire is going to go out or not, and you are not equipped to determine if that fire is going to stay out, and if you're wrong about the effectiveness of the extinguisher, you're going to let the fire get a lot worse.
Dammit, 911 hates false alarms, but they hate not getting real alarms MORE, and you're much better off telling the nice firemen "OH GOD MY LIVING ROOM IS ON FIRE PSSSSSH PSSSSSSSH PSSSSSH OH HEY I THINK IT'S OUT"