The Firehouse

To this guy it seemed the logical thing to do. “Hey, my car is on fire…and look, there’s a gas station, where they have plenty of those huge fire extinguishers on wheels, I’m saved!”.

A buddy from our firehouse and I were stopped at a gas station filling up the car doubling the car’s value by filling its tank, when we suddenly spot a flaming vehicle approaching fast. The reaction from everyone at the station was the same – we got the hell out of there as fast as we could! Once it looked like nothing was going to catch fire, and with the driver safely out of the vehicle, we put it out with a couple of powder and CO2 extinguishers. A CO2 extinguisher will do little to put out a car, but it can drive the flames down enough to stop some of the radiated heat, allowing a second person to unload a foam or powder extinguisher closer to the fire. Sometimes you gotta do with what you have on hand!

Extra points for spotting what’s wrong with the picture above. If you don’t know, watch this video:

and remember it the next time you respond to a vehicle fire. The guy in the video wasn’t wearing full PPE either.