Extinguishing Fires

Yesterday I attended a lecture on how to evacuate the building I work in during times of crisis, mainly in case of fire. A part of this meeting was allowing us to use fire extinguishes and seeing how the different kinds of extinguishers work. That part was actually rather practical for at-home scenarios. I own an old extinguisher that the previous owners of my apartment left and it's last checked 2006 so I plan to have it looked at after this event.

The Reykjavik Airport Fire Department hosted the exercises and here's one shot from it, with a Fokker 50 from Air Iceland taxiing on the runway of Reykjavik Airport in the background.

With a family of one and a half child (step-daughter) and a dog, this is one area I'm more aware of in recent years. I would encourage anyone to give this subject a thought. As an Air Traffic Controller a lot of my training was about teaching the right reactions in case of emergencies. A sudden fire is known to cause panic and even more so when you have absolutely no idea what to do. Thus it's always good to have some idea about what you can or should do in case of a fire.

Of course, the first rule of thumb is always to call for help and get people away from danger.