Smells Like Food

Thanks for putting Mike Ciampo in Tom Brennan’s old spot on the back cover. For many years, Random Thoughts was the first thing I read. I enjoyed the no-nonsense, street-smart tips and the Irish humor Brennan displayed each month. Now we have another fire service treasure filling some very large shoes. I look forward to many years of no-nonsense articles. It really is the “basics” that allow us to do this job safely, and I know Mike Ciampo is up to the task.

“Smells Like Food” (On Fire, November 2009) reminded me of a job I worked on Thanksgiving day long ago, only my job was featured on live television! We were dispatched on a brisk morning for a trash can fire at the rear of WTVR television station Channel 6 in Richmond, Virginia. We arrived to find a large deep fat fryer on fire in the rear parking lot. While my lineman went for a carbon dioxide extinguisher, I tried to smother the fire with the pot lid. The aluminum had warped from the heat, and the fire wouldn’t go out.

Next, we tried an entire carbon dioxide extinguisher, but the metal remained too hot and the grease reignited. I was starting to feel like a fool as the cameraman was moving around us to get different angles of these “big city” firefighters at work. I called for the trash line to cool the metal. As soon as the lineman hit it, some water went into the pot, causing the grease to boil over onto the asphalt parking lot. Keep in mind it was November, and fallen leaves were everywhere. The leaves ignited from all the hot grease and just then a gust of wind scattered the burning leaves under a row of parked cars. Murphy’s Law was in full effect, and it was being shared live with the entire Richmond metro area! The fire was finally extinguished before any more property was damaged. To add insult to injury, a news reporter stuck a microphone in my face and asked me “if every grease fire was this difficult to extinguish.” I gave her my best Pete Lund-style smirk and told her, “If fires were easy to extinguish, they would let the cops do it!”