What to use to put out different types of fire
Labor Day… the day to relax and have fun with the family. I planned on giving my wife a relaxing morning by letting her sleep in and having breakfast ready for her and the kids when she woke up. We were going to have the All-American breakfast… pancakes, eggs, and bacon. It wasn’t as relaxing as I had planned.
Everything was going fine until I decided to cook the bacon a new way. The package indicated I could broil the bacon in less time than baking it. So I proceeded to broil the bacon. It was going just fine, I flipped the bacon over and continued broiling the bacon for another three minutes. When I opened the oven at the end of the three minutes I was greeted by a oven full of flames! I yelled “Flames… Flames in the oven!
By this time, my wife had managed to come downstairs and was in the other room. She heard me yelling and came running into the kitchen. “Throw water on it,” she stated unaware that I was broiling bacon in the oven and that the fire was caused by grease. Knowing not to throw water on a grease fire, I grabbed the container of flour in the cupboard above the oven and doused it on the flaming pan, reducing the flames to nothing.
I tell my Labor Day story to ask a question; Do you know what to use to put out a fire?
For a fire that is burning from:
- cloth, wood, and/or paper use water to extinguish it or a Class A Fire Extinguisher,
- grease, cover the pan with a lid, douse it with baking soda, or use a Class B Fire Extinguisher,
- electrical charge, use a Class C Fire Extinguisher.
For more information on the different classes of fire extinguishers and what they can put out, see Hanford Fire Department’s website below and hopefully the next time I cook it will be a relaxing morning for my wife and I won’t attempt to burn the house down.
HFD – All You Ever Wanted to Know About Fire Extinguishers
Popularity: 38% [?]
I heard flour is combustible and should not be thrown on a fire
Teresa, you bring up a good point. Flour is combustible given that is in the form of a dust mixed with air. To learn more about the combustibility of flour check out http://www.wisegeek.com/what-causes-flour-to-explode.htm. I do recommend that you use baking soda to put out grease fires. However, flour was the quickest thing for me to grab.