The Fire This Time

PART I - FIRE SUPPRESSION

On Wednesday night, I got to fulfill a childhood fantasy of saving my home with a fire extinguisher.

Fenya had questions about the cinnamon bun recipe she was using right from the get-go, and she clearly should have listened to her instincts. 

But like a trooper, she pressed on, not realizing that the sugary doughy mixture spilled over the confines of the tiny baking sheet she had used and on to the foil she had tried to line the element with and then created a small fire under the foil.

She yelled "fire!" and called for help, and I raced upstairs as quickly as a man with four to five large glasses of wine in him after supper could manage. The flames were small; three, perhaps four inches tall, so initially I tried to combat them with a spray bottle from under the bathroom sink. But Fenya saw that there were still flames under the foil so I grabbed a pair of tongs to shift the foil and combat them at their source. 

This turned out to be a grievous error in judgment on my part, as flames lept up past the stovetop, and Fenya shrieked, "please use the fire extinguisher!" Which I did.

Two and a half squirts of monoammonium phosphate later, the fire was out, and we finished opening all the windows and fanning the smoke detector until it stopped shrieking.

We all had a good laugh about it afterward, and I thanked her for making that time my bacon-wrapped scallops caught fire into such a trivial matter by comparison.

PART II - DAMAGE CONTROL

I should clarify that my reluctance to use the extinguisher was a product of fear or cheapness, the knowledge that the clean-up could be extensive, and that supposition turned out to be spot-on.

It turns out that all dry chemical extinguisher material should be cleaned up right away because they are caustic. And because their causticity can be due to them being either an acid or a base, you need to know what chemicals you are dealing with so you know the proper cleaning solution. 

Literally - the solution in our case was a mixture of baking soda and water, whereas a more acidic compound would have required mixing isopropyl alcohol and water. But then the baking soda residue needed to be rinsed or washed away. As a result, we ended up cleaning almost the entire kitchen, and thankfully vinegar water seemed to do the trick, despite being acidic.

Everyone pitched in, and while my reach let me get to the back of the wall behind the cupboards, Fenya's ability to stand on the counter was a valuable asset to get into the corner.

On the plus side, the kitchen hasn't been this clean since we moved in...well, until I used Audrey's gift basket from the Italian Centre to make dinner tonight.