Re: Smells funny.
Ouch, been there, got the T-Shirt.
Although in our case it was the 25p microswitch attached to the ball-float in the genny header tank (that would turn on the pumps to replenish the header tank (~24 hour's fuel) from the external tanks (1 week's fuel)) that failed and turned a "phew, everything's OK" into "oh fuck."
On the bright side, I learned how to prime a dry diesel engine that night.