Reply to post: Re: "Leap out and let it burn"

My PC is on fire! Can you back it up really, really fast?

Lee D Silver badge

Re: "Leap out and let it burn"

If you've ever done any fire safety course ever:

The fire extinguishers are there for you to secure a safe exit.

NOT for you to extinguish the fire.

You can do. If you like. If your company lets you. If you take the risk upon yourself. If you think it's safe. If you accept that nobody's going to praise you for it.

But the fire "extinguisher" is for you to escape with. Not put out the fire with.

I question it every year, at many different employers, but that's the universal "we're not going to take the risk of telling you otherwise" answer.

Yep, you see a fire, you're supposed to just get to a safe place. You can use the extinguishers to help you do that, but you should have been out of the building long before that's necessary.

Given some of the (listed, 400+ year old, wood-panelled, with original fireplaces still in use) buildings I've worked in, I don't need to be told twice.

Had a close incident with a MacBook battery that got wet and swelled to four times its normal size (destroying the MacBook in the process), which someone wanted to drop in a bucket of water, and that was enough to tell me that most people's first reaction to a fire is probably not sensible anyway. It's like the chip-pan fire safety videos from when I was a kid. I *still* see people do dumb things like pour water on hot fat.

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