Why do we need household fire extinguishers?
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flo (
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December 2nd, 2016
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All fires start off small. If you have a fire extinguisher and can put it out quickly, you won’t have a huge fire. I’d also recommend a fire blanket in your kitchen to starve fat fires.
How are the two questions related?
I’m not seeing your point either @flo.
The questions are related because keeping a fire extinguisher and wearing a helmet are both insurance against rare events.
Most people won’t use either one, but both are prudent in many cases.
Everyone should have an extinguisher in their house. I just was thinking last week I still haven’t bought one, and I want for this new house and I want to.
If a fire starts and you can get it out with an extinguisher then you save the house from further damage.
When a realtor of mine caught her dining room on fire with candles at the center of the table, having a fire extinguisher stopped the fire from spreading into other rooms. I don’t think she could have done it with just a bucket of water. It had started by igniting the dried centerpiece display, tablecloth, chairs, charred the wall. Not good.
I lived in a building that burned in a fire 10 days before Christmas at the end of 1998. 165 families homeless. It started from a woman on the top floor who was spray painting Christmas ornaments and put them in the oven to dry. Perhaps if she had a fire extinguisher we would not have all lost our homes (and pets and whatever else we lost).
Last year I was with my daughter at a kid’s birthday party and the mom had a table in the foyer with candles on it. She placed the gifts on the table, too, including gift bags that had pretty tissue paper sticking up. Somehow one of the gift bags toppled over onto a candle and caught fire. All the moms were standing around chatting and the hostess’ back was to the fire. I saw it and luckily the mom acted quickly, taking the burning bag to the sink. It doesn’t take much…...
“Do you ride to school or take your lunch” is the answer
or
42
^^LOL. 42! 42!
@jca I can’t see having any candles lit at a kids birthday party, except on the cake. Im partial to no fire in the house though.
I often give fire extinguishers to family when they move into their own apartment. I have one in my kitchen, garage and car. The point is that you hope you never have to use it, but if you ever do, what if you didn’t have it?
P. S. I did have to use one Thanksgiving 1992. I turned the oven up after cooking the turkey to cook the biscuits and forgot. The small fire was put out in minutes. I called the fire department just in case, and my insurance covered the cost of the new stove and oven.
In my county it is law for all multi-unit residences. I’m not sure about houses but I have two in my house.
I live in a connected 4 apartment unit. If I found our my neighbours didn’t have a fire extinguisher, I’d buy them one for Xmas. (even the ones that are so christian they don’t believe in xmas.)
When I was about 7 and my sister was 10 we got home everyday before my parents. So we preheated the oven to make a frozen pizza after school. We were cooking things like raman and mac and cheese and frozen pizzas for years.
The problem this time was there was a dozen glazed doughnuts in the oven in a box. And we didn’t check before pre-heating.
So that shit goes up in flames. And we managed to just pull it onto the kitchen floor. We had a fire extinguisher in the kitchen so instead of losing a house we just had to replace the floor in the kitchen.
Because houses and their contents are flammable. It’s just a sensible thing to anticipate fire. Why do we have fire departments, first aid kits or a jack & spare in the trunk?
A fire extinguisher is one of those things that fall under the category of:
Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.
Other items in that category would be; first aid kit; spare automobile tire; emergency bicycle repair kit; extra sets of clothing for small children; smoke/CO alarm;
@flo, of course, misses my point entirely (or deliberately misrepresents it). She seems to be under the delusion that I oppose safety devices because, well, just because, I guess. I don’t. Matter-of-fact I have a fire extinguisher in my kitchen near the stove. My opposition in the referenced thread is with the notion that I am legally obligated to wear a helmet or else be penalized for not. Likewise I would oppose being legally mandated to keep a fire extinguisher in my home or else be penalized for not having one.
^Yeah, I can’t imagine having fire extinguisher police.
@chyna You wouldn’t have to. A clause in every insurance policy making it void if no extinguisher was present would do the trick nicely.
I would also like to see the helmet rules work the same way. No helmet voids the insurance.
I didn’t get notification for this thread this time.
@Darth_Algar re. fatherless chidren.
No to steal your question, but hospitals have two words for motorcycle riders who insist on the freedom to NOT wear helmets – Organ donors.
@flo
There are a million things that kill people each and every day. Should the government intervene in our lives to protect us from all of them?
@Darth _Algar Yes if it’s needed. You’re showing that if’s needed.
@flo
Good idea. Thousands of people die from choking each year. The government should outlaw solid food. Thousands of people also die from drowning every year, so the govern should mandate the wearing of rebreather kits whenever you’re in water more than a few inches deep. Lots of people die from falls and accidents, so we should be required to wear padded full-body suits whenever we go out. Actually, we probably shouldn’t go out at all. We should be confined to our domiciles, which should be simple square buildings with no stairs, padded walls and textured, rubberized flooring to prevent slipping. Maybe with a government agent with us at all times to insure that we do nothing potentially unsafe.
@Darth_Algar Actively avoiding wearing a helmet, (leaving the children parentless etc.) is not similar to accidentally chocking, falling etc.
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