A good friend who I have known my entire life (his mum was my vacation bible school teacher) had a grease fire in his house last night and it burnt down. He was actually asleep, and his wife was cooking something and it caught fire and got out of control quickly. She posted about it on FB and said “I know you aren’t supposed to use water on grease fires, but I forgot about using flour.”
I was a volunteer fireman for a number of years in my youth, and took a bunch of courses on this stuff, including smoke diving classes, and I want to be as clear as I possibly can:
DO NOT POUR FLOUR OR BASICALLY ANYTHING OTHER THAN BAKING SODA OR A CHEMICAL FIRE EXTINGUISHER ON A GREASE FIRE. EVER.
Flour on a grease fire will explode:
This is what you should do if you have a grease fire:
Turn off the stove. Cover the fire with a lid if you can. Put baking soda on it or use a Class B chemical fire extinguisher. If that fails, GET EVERYONE AND THE PETS AND GET THE FUCK OUT. It’s just a god damned house.
The end. This has been an especially tough couple of weeks for my friend- his mother had her leg amputated because of circulatory issues and now has MRSA and pneumonia, and now this. I stopped by and talked to him early this morning and he is just devastated. We’re a tight little town and he knows he can stay here and basically anywhere he needs, so we’ll get through this.