A $10 Walmart fire extinguisher can save you $100,000

WZ JUNK · July 18, 2004, 07:34:11 AM

Yesterday morning I backed an all steel blown Willys coupe out of the shop to clean the shop before the days work. When I tried to start the car I realized it was out of fuel. I put in a couple of gallons and started the car and moved it out of the garage. My wife took a picture of me after I got out of the car. I take lots of pictures of the stuff I work on. When the shop was clean I started the car and drove it back in to the shop. It was not idling smoothly and so I was letting in run a few minuets hoping it would smooth out. That's when it went poof. I shut the engine off and got out of the car. Flames were coming out of the back of the hood, the hood scoop and even out the front between the hood and fenders and the floor of my shop was on fire. I pushed the car out of shop, hollered for my wife to call 911 and then I ripped the $10 Walmart fire extinguisher off of the wall without undoing the bracket. I put the fire out in the car with a couple of squirts and then the fire on my shop floor with a couple more. It all happened in just a few seconds. I think the float in the back carburetor had stuck and gasoline had leaked all over the engine and dripped to the floor. I know that I pushed the car outside by myself but it took my 20 year old son and myself and all our energy to push it back in last night. After the 3 fire trucks and the ambulance left I made a trip to Walmart and I bought 5 more fire extinguishers (and a 24 pack of toilet paper). You can hardly swing a hammer in my shop now without hitting a fire extinguisher. I am going to try to post the pictures of the car with me, after the fire, the firemen leaving, and the car after the clean up. Amazingly the car has very little damage. A couple of paint buckles on the hood near the scoop and two small paint bubbles on the top edge of the cowl. The owner said that the car was finished on this go around about 10 years ago and the paint on the hood needed some freshening anyway. It is a car with a lot of local history as it ran regularly on the local dragstrip nearly 40 years ago. I plan to replace some of the wiring on the engine this morning, do little more cleaning on the engine and fire it up.

Now, go buy a couple more fire extinguishers for your shop. I figure that $10 fire extinguisher save the Willys, which may be worth $60,000 or more, and my shop, which with the building, contents, and tools is worth at least $40,000. In the time it took the firemen to get to my place, the building would have been to engulfed in fire to have been saved. At the rate the Willys was burning, it would have been gone in a minuet or two.

I hope things go better today.

Note: the pictures are not in the order that I intended and I am not going to change them. First picture is of the damage, second is firemen leaving, me with the car, and the car after clean up.

SKR8PN · July 18, 2004, 07:56:25 AM

Somebody was watching over your butt...........
I have TWO,30lb fire bottles in my shop,and sometimes wonder if that is enough.
Some SCARY stuff isn't it?

??

Sean · July 18, 2004, 08:28:29 AM

Glad to see everything turned out allright. Thats one good looking Car too...

About 15 years ago I worked at a manufacturing company that burned to the ground. The Paint Room door was about 20 feet away from one of the Welding operations. It was a Friday afternoon, and most of us were cleaning up the shop, including the painter. He had done his normal routine, and poured about 5 gallons of "Gun Cleaner on the concrete floor of the paint room to soften the overspray before scraping it off.

To make a long story short, one of the company owners brought out something off his lawnmower to get it welded back up before all his welders left for the weekend. One spark made it across that 20 feet somehow, and in seconds the entire paint room was a ball of fire.

The building itself was 60 feet wide and 200 feet long. The ceiling was made of those Blue Celotex panels, and the first thing I remember seeing was the Flames following the Gun Cleaner fumes across the ceiling, all the way down the length of the building. I was pretty close to the center of the building when it started, and even though I started running instantly, the smoke and fumes were down around my face before I made it halfway out of the building. I went the last 20-30 feet nearly blind.

Amazingly, out of the 25 or so people that were there that day, the only injurys were from the melting Celotex panels raining molten foam all over the place. The Building was a total loss and was completely engulfed by the time the fire department made it to the scene, which was only about 20 minutes. Pretty good considering they came from Columbia, MO which was about 15 miles away.

I would say out of all of us, the Painter was the luckiest, because he had stepped outside just a few seconds before that spark went into the paint room. He would have been incinerated.

Anyway, a fire extinguisher would not have helped anything in this case, but it illustrates how fast a fire can get out of control when common chemicals and building materials are involved. This building was basically just a giant, well insulated Pole Barn. Lots of open space, and mostly just Steel and Concrete, but that didn't stop it from burning completely to the ground in a matter of minutes....

rooster · July 18, 2004, 08:33:45 AM

Well done John!

Fire ext are not enough to have just at the house, you have to have them on board also!

In the past 35 years I have put out at least 7-8 auto fires while working. The concrete truck I dove carried a 100 on board water tank. The last one I put out was interstate 44, a guy lost his rear wheel bearing and kept drivng anyway, the tire was on fire and the oil coming from the differental was going up to. When I pulled up the guy was shacking up a 2 liter bottle of coke and using that for his extingusher.

chopped · July 18, 2004, 08:57:17 AM

Spent the last 20 yrs rebuilding fire damage. The result is that in my house or shop your going to trip over all the fire extingushers and bump your head on the smoke alarms, you can NEVER have too many. :!:

phat46 · July 18, 2004, 09:22:03 AM

Nice save! That car is really sweet, looks like it cleaned up very well.
Did you find the cause of the fire for sure? I'd be really leary about starting it up again unless I could find something wrong and fix it! My brother is a full time firefighter and I hear lots of stories about this sort of thing. I have three exthinguishers in my shop, maybe i should get a couple more!!!

40 · July 18, 2004, 10:10:57 AM

Your gaurdian angel was certainly looking out for you! Your story is definately incentive enough for me to stop and pick up a couple additional extinguishers for both the shop and garage...think I'll even make time to instruct my 7 year old grandson on how to use them.Glad the story had a somewhat happy ending for you...now,be carefull when you fire that bad boy up today

Fift4fe · July 18, 2004, 11:06:37 AM

Lucky, very lucky.

As I have said before in previous posts, we all get complacent in working in the garage/shop and take for granted that everything is allright. Lucky - If you had left the garage for any reason it would have been gone.
Lucky - you had an extinguisher and you found it in a reasonable amount of time.
Lucky - the extinguisher worked.
Lucky - you didn't inhale any harmful fumes

Garage/shop fires are some of the most dangerous fires to combat. Whats in a garage? Flammables, combustables, compressed gasses, explosion hazards. Just about anything that can and will kill residents and firefighters are in there.

Your first line of defense against fire is working smoke detectors and fire extinguishers. You have to make the decision if your life and your loved ones lives are worth a minimum monitary investment. Some people don't think so, just read the papers. In fact most local fire departments have a free or for a minimum cost smoke detector program. I know we do.

Have installed, as a minimum, two 10 lb. ABC extinguishers in your garage/shop hanging in a place that is visible, not only to you but also visitors, and also accessable. Take them off the hangars once yearly, invert them to fluff up the powder inside and replace.

Smoke alarm batteries should be replaced twice a year when you change your clocks (in the US) and tested monthly.

Done preaching fire/life safety

Any Questions?

phat46 · July 18, 2004, 11:11:17 AM

Any Questions?[/quote]

No questions here, but you sure sound a lot like my brother!!!

jaybee · July 18, 2004, 11:27:43 AM

You claim to take all these pictures, but none of you putting out the fire?

Seriously, I'm glad your property is OK, glad the car is OK, but more than anything glad you are OK.

My shop extinguisher is in a cabinet. I know right where it is, but does anyone else? I doubt it. This afternoon is reserved for work. Project number 1 today will be to mount that extinguisher on the wall. It will be near the door, too. No sense being a dead hero.

Thanks for the safety reminder.

rooster · July 18, 2004, 12:13:08 PM

Some years ago my dad and I were on the way home from the lake of the Ozarks, while on the road ahead of us we could see some flashing lights of a state patrol and some smoke coming from a car. The trooper flaged us down and without asking jumped into the boat we were pulling and grabed the fire extingusher, then put out the remainig fire, he used all his up!

It good we all have these must have extingushers in the shop!
Thats not good enough
You have to have them in the car also!

If this would have happend to John while he was in a Walmart parking lot the outcome may have been different!

HotRodLadyCrusr · July 18, 2004, 12:49:32 PM

The hairs on my arms are standing up on end. This brings back awful memories. I'm thrill to hear that you, your shop and of course the car are ok.

Daryle, I'm having mixed feeelings about what you said concerning Josh. At first I was thinking, yes, great idea, not only for him to know where it's located but how to use it too. But after thinking about it more, dwelling on it actually, I've come to the conclusion, and maybe one of our resident firefighters can correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel a 7 year old has no business any where near a fire and if he sees one should run as far away as necessary and call 911. I would hate for anything to happen to him while he's trying to play hero. Even a slight burn can be very painful and your cars, house, shop is not worth the possiblity of something happening to him cuz he didn't run to safety.

Please rethink this. Also, your local firehouse should have some info regarding a fire safety program for children that includes them learning how to stop, drop and roll. A wonderful program that should be available to all children.

WZ JUNK · July 18, 2004, 01:24:18 PM

Another side note that I had omitted was that the electric fuel pump switch was seperate from the ignition switch. When I intially shut the motor off the electric pump was still pumping fuel until I remember about the pump switch. When I rewire the car I will change this so that when the motor is shut down, the fuel pump is off. I think that when the car was wired many years ago it was done this way to avoid flooding the engine. You could start and stop the pump when you started the engine. I will probably still have this feature but have it so that when the ignition switch is off the pump will not run.

Bruce Dorsi · July 18, 2004, 06:33:20 PM

Quote from: "WZ JUNK"Another side note that I had omitted was that the electric fuel pump switch was seperate from the ignition switch. When I intially shut the motor off the electric pump was still pumping fuel until I remember about the pump switch. When I rewire the car I will change this so that when the motor is shut down, the fuel pump is off. I think that when the car was wired many years ago it was done this way to avoid flooding the engine. You could start and stop the pump when you started the
engine. I will probably still have this feature but have it so that when the ignition switch is off the pump will not run.

-----------------------------
John, you should change your name to "Wz * Lucky!"
.....Sorry to hear of the incident, but it's a good lesson for the rest of us!

It may also be worthwhile to wire the electric fuel pump through an oil-pressure switch. ...This will kill the fuel pump anytime the engine stalls. ....A momentary switch wired in parallel will allow for cold starts.

On many late models, the computer shuts the electric fuel pump off if the engine dies.

purplepickup · July 18, 2004, 06:57:36 PM

Wow John, you were lucky, thank God. I've got two extinguishers in the shop but none in the house. I've been going to get one and your post is enough of a kick in the butt to get out and do it. Thanks!

Quote from: "WZ JUNK"I know that I pushed the car outside by myself but it took my 20 year old son and myself and all our energy to push it back in last night.

It's amazing how strong you can get when the adrenalin is flowing isn't it?

Here's a pic of a car fire at Louisville 2 years ago. They emptied two 10 pound extinguishers and a few 3 pounders on this one before they got it out. The hood sides were bolted to the cowl so they couldn't get to the fire.

Here's what caused it.