Extinguisher Saves Home From Electrical Fire

It started with a pop in the kitchen, and seemed to come from the stove, but it wasn't on. "The pop sounded electrical," Paula Lowery said. "I checked the other items plugged in and unplugged everything, the coffee pot and other items."

She walked through her home looking for the sound's source. Finding nothing, Lowery returned to the kitchen and detected what smelled like an electrical fire.

By now her partner, Kevin McHugh, had come into the kitchen when they noticed smoke coming from a cabinet below the stove.

"We know now why they say not to open a door when a fire is behind it," Lowery said. "Flames just came billowing out." While Lowery called 911, McHugh grabbed a fire extinguisher in the kitchen and extinguished the fire.

McHugh said the electrician told them there were some loose wires that caused the fire.

The more Lowery thought about the fire, the more she realized how bad it could have been. She gets chills when she thinks about it, "I'm afraid the entire house would have been lost." "The damage wasn't worse than it was, only because we had the fire extinguisher," Lowery said.

According to the Fire Equipment Manufacturers' Association, 93% of all fire-related deaths and 95% of all property damage from fires occur when the fire has progressed beyond its early stages.

The National Fire Protection Association recommends having extinguishers and knowing how to use them. They also suggest selecting a multi-purpose extinguisher large enough to put out a small fire but not too heavy to make handling it difficult. NFPA stresses having a fire escape plan ahead of time too.

Delinski, B. (2018), Times Daily, retrieved from timesdaily.com, February 16, 2018.