An uncomfortable topic, but necessary

[drumrunner]

These past few months I have been talking with folks who are fairly well prepared for pandemic or disaster; food, water, medical supplies, backup heating and cooking sources; some have generators and solar panels, plenty of firearms and ammo. All well and good.

 

However, when I question how many fire extinguishers are in the house, I usually get a startled look and a negative answer. This is NOT the correct answer to the question on this test, gang.

 

http://www.drum-runners.com/Fire%20-%20Fire%20Safety.pdf

 

If this pandemic continues on it's present trajectory, or gets worse, calling 911 may not be an option.

[Homemaker]

My husband took care of getting us re-stocked with several fresh extinguishers recently. We had three, but they were about 8 years old. I think they have a shelf life, but I'm not sure how long. He went ahead and replaced them. We have four. One in the kitchen. one in the laundry room, one in the garage, and one in the bedroom.

 

What we really need to do now is replace all of the smoke detectors. I think the sensors on those diminish over time.

[Josephine]

One thing I read about fire extinguishers is NOT to keep them in an area like the kitchen, etc. The first thing we tend to do is run AWAY from a fire, so keep them in the room next to where a fire would probably start. For example, I have the one for the kitchen right outside the kitchen door in the dining room. You don't want to be trying to get to the extinguisher while at the same time trying not to get burned.

[Motherhen]

We have one at the front door, upstairs and in the kitchen. They were very valuable to us when we had a fire at the barn in the spring. More details later as I'm leaving for town soon and hard to type on the laptop.

[Vic303]

Have 3. One in master bedroom, garage & kitchen. We had them before the neighbor had a grassfire (and DH put it out with an extinguisher of ours). But that incident reinforced our need to have them on hand.

[Homemaker]

Funny story about a fire extinguisher...

At work, we had one on every forktruck. Our maintenance guy had me lift him up on one into the rafters of the building so he could cut off some supports. The sparks must have come down and managed to get into the cracked vinyl of the seat I was sitting on. When he finished and I lowered him back down, we both left the area. A while later he came back through and found the seat of the forktruck on fire. The closest fire extinguisher was on the truck, above the flameing seat. He couldn't grab it so he had to run through the building to the next closest one in order to put it out.

 

I thought of that when Josephine mentioned not storing one in the kitchen. It would seem a good place to keep one right by the stove, but maybe that's not a good idea.

[Christy]

Funny you should mention this. We got back from the retreat/smallhold yesterday.

Earlier this week DS told me that he was getting me a fire-extinguisher for my birthday and the place is totally offgrid and oillamps and candles only.

So yesterday we were cleaning and packing to go back here and all of a sudden he yells the compostheap is on fire! We run back and forth with buckets, wheelbarrrows and I quickly got the hose from next door. It reached as far as the veggiepatch so the boys could fill up a bit closer to the fire.

 

It was a shock and we will be getting an attachment for the handpump to connect to a hose. Still got a high BP over it.

[Cricket]

I keep an entinguisher in the trunk of my car, too.

[pamcat]

I work in a small pizza shop inside a small grocery store. We had an electrical fire today which was quickly put out with a fire extinguisher. Just two short bursts of foam and the fire was out. But we were then told everything in the restaurant had to be washed. oh my goodness all those pizza pans and dishes. everything that was opened had to be thrown away because of possible contamination by the fire extinguisher.

 

[ANewMe]

Thanks for shining a big light on a huge prep hole of mine. I "think" i have one.

[Jori]

I just checked in the closet next to the kitchen. I'm in the same boat ANM is, I thought it was there and it is. DH is sitting on the PC next to me (yes, too.... ) and I asked him if it was there, since I didn't see it mounted on the wall. He told me there was also one in the garage & he was thinking about getting a few more.

[lunamother]

one in the living room, one in our bedroom, and one in the kitchen- the 3 rooms with open fire capability.

[Annarchy]

We have several strategically placed around our house and in our vehicles.

 

We've had 5 houses in our neighborhood burn down in the last 10 years. Fire extinguishers are part of our home security.

[Homemaker]

Five houses Annarchy!!! Why so many?

[Annarchy]

Five houses Annarchy!!! Why so many?

 

Old wiring, lack of maintenance, bad luck, coincidence, who knows?

[naturelady]

I have two, but they are probably 8-10 yrs old. Is there a way to tell if they are still usable? I don't see any dates or anything on mine.. Note to self - new extinguishers on the next shopping list. Also new fire/smoke detectors....