It was about 23:45hrs (+/- 2 minutes), cool summer night, I was browsing my email in the living, my elder son was doing his art thing in his room, my wife and the two youngest kids were watching movie – Children of Heaven, my 3rd kid was easing his nature’s call upstairs and my second son was helping himself with his chai in the kitchen, he observed smoke came out from the Main Circuit Breaker (MCB) panel. He rushed out from the kitchen and alerted me about the situation. I went immediately to the kitchen, yes, there was heavy smoke. Minutes after that, the MCB busted into fire and gradually became bigger with sparks, snapped out the main line. Black smoke from the burning MCB and cables clouded our humble kitchen. And, this entire thing is one inch near to the kitchen wooden cabinet.
Subsequently, I asked my son to alert everyone, instructed them to grab the nearest standby torch light, our emergency 'go ahead' luggage (where we keep our passports, important documents and some other important things) and to standby for the worst. As the situation worsened, while watching the fire, I directed them to grab all our laptops & its accessories and few clothing (expecting the worst).One of my sons went down asking for our Security’s help while I negotiated with my neighbors looking for extinguisher and helps. None of them kept one and I went back to my house searching for one in case any. Unfortunately, I did not find one especially during the emergency situation like that…..
There were black smoke everywhere in the kitchen and we purposely did not open the windows and doors as this will allow oxygen boosting the fire and escalating the situation. Well, just imagine the aftermath?!
All of them responded and rendered their hands. One of them with some alcoholic smell from his mouth was very brave putting-off the fire by himself 'nakedly'. We shouted and reminded him this is electrical fire (luckily he didn’t bring us a pale of water to extinguish the fire). At this point of the time, the power was cut-off, the house was in the dark but the main cable was still dangling ‘naked’ with bluish fire of the breaker switch. About 10 minutes after that, our Security used a plastic broom to kill the fire and alhamdullillah, the fire extinguished.
Ahmed Sharifuddin came with his family at about 00:30 hrs to give us moral support. Electrical contractor came about 50 minutes after that. He assessed the condition and isolated the whole connection.
We slept at about 3:00 am in the morning conditioned by the soft breezily Alex Summer wind. It was not really a good sleep though.
Fortunately I was a trained On Scene Commander & Fire Fighters and had experienced few real life incidents that have made me calm throughout the commotion. The knowledge and experiences somehow or rather had automatet my reaction to do the following:- Did not Panic – this is essential
- Assessed the situation and know the source of fire
- Prioritized what to do first.
We must be sensitive and alert at all time and some Proactive steps are essentials:
- Keep important and items in a place which is at lease heat proof and easily assessable during emergency
- Keep at least one fire extinguisher especially for electrical fire at home – which I didn’t. And, make sure the family member know how to apply it.
Next day, I called a discussion session with all my family members, briefed them on categories of fires and how to deal with them, what lessons need to be learnt out of the incidents and really, we had a short drill in the evening. It was fun for them. Well, on the good side of it, it was easier for me to explain to them why we should not take SAFETY for granted! For that matter health and environment.
We suspected the smoke (eventually fire) came from old wiring cable in the conduit which might have been caused by high load. Honestly, even the electrical specialist was not able to identify the culprit.
Thanks to all of you especially Ahmad Sharifuddin, Eng. Saber, Abd Moneim Shehab and Eng. Mohamed Fikry for the moral support.
Thanks to our Bawab and our landlord for their prompt support and actions.
Thanks to the electrical team for resolving and repairing the damaged MCB, etc. in a very dedicated manner.
Thanks to my family for being very cooperative and responsive
Last but not least and above all, zillion of thanks to the Almighty Allah azza wa jala for still keeping us all in good health and fate.
0 comments:
Post a Comment