If I could presume to add a corollary to the excellent notes on using a fire extinguisher above-- know when to leave. If you've still got fire and you're all out of extinguisher, you've done your bit for hearth and home. Get the hell out and get to fresh air. Even if you didn't get it all out, you've probably retarded its progress to some degree and made a swift resolution that much easier when the fire department arrives. Pat yourself on the back as you leave.
This goes triple for asthmatics-- earlier this week, I hit the scene of a kitchen fire as part of the first arriving engine company. The renter of the townhome (and the fire's only victim), a middle-aged asthmatic, decided to fight the fire for several minutes even after their two extinguishers were empty. So the first thing we saw as we got out of the truck was EMS hauling this person away, overcome by smoke, burnt on the hands and forearms.
It's hard to explain how malign the smoke from burning petrochemical gunk (roughly 95% of the stuff in your homes, including carpets, furniture coverings, countertops, and appliance facings) is to those who've never been subsumed in it. It's acrid, evil stuff, poisonous in all sorts of ways, and it will kick off an asthma attack in faint quantities. If you and the other occupants are safe, it's not your job to suck this stuff down. It's not your responsibility to "tough it out" and win a moral victory for your inanimate objects.
Furthermore, even if you have just a wee bitty fire and/or you do get it out with an extinguisher, ventilate the area. Open the windows and doors. Set fans intelligently, to either blow fresh air in from a clean area or to shoot smoky air out a door or window. Air the place out, and keep anyone unnecessary out of the smoked area until it's clear.
I will stress this again, because I married a chronic asthmatic and I have seen them suffering several times now at fire scenes: The ideal place for someone with serious asthma during the post-fire ventilation process is outside. Or in a car. Or at another house altogether.
Or just in case that wasn't clear enough, let me shoot again: The people escalating the culture wars are the cretinous fucking thugs driving their fellow citizens away from their homes and their lives. And we're supposed to feel bad about calling a spade a spade? Balls.
We have nothing to gain by escalating the culture wars. It will just radicalize more of them. In that, Obama is right.
And therein lies the essence of Patrick's earlier response, and the heart of why we are where we are right now-- because those fucking assholes feel empowered, as a community, to openly ride other citizens out of town on a rail for their religious beliefs-- but heaven forfend we should fail to make nicey-nicey when talking to them, or even about them.
Once again, it's all our fault for making the bully hit us.
Easily the most gruesome mammary displacement on record since the great Rob Liefeld Transdimensional Man-Boob Controversy:
http://s8.invisionfree.com/Superdickery_Forum/index.php?showtopic=1458
Avram, of what possible value would that trade be to Jo; a legal right she cares very deeply about, traded away for an opportunity that she has expressed no interest in?
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