“I smell gas.”
“No, it’s just the heater you smell.”
“No, I smell gas!” BOOM!
The explosion rocked the campsite and sounded
like a huge firecracker going off under the tent. The problem was, the explosion was at the entrance to the tent so people were fighting their way through the tent sides
to escape. After the explosion, fire enveloped the cutoff valve and regulator so we could not turn the gas off on the propane cylinder.
John immediately ran across the road to Cajunville and grabbed the fire extinguisher he
had just mounted inside the door to our camper the day before. Back to the fire and the first blast over shot the flames. He adjusted his aim and the second short blast extinguished the fire. We were then able to turn off the gas.
What began with the capability to severely burn someone, ended about as well as we could have hoped — just a story to tell. Now for the events leading up to the boom.
If you are like us, fire extinguishers are not something you think about every day. It is only at the moment of need that we realize how important they really are. In preparing for our next chapter in RVing, we wanted to have the fire extinguishers checked. In doing so, memories of when we needed that fire extinguisher came to mind.
We were camping with our “No Name RV Club” (that is for another post), in the dead of winter. Being from south Louisiana dead of winter does not mean the same thing as it does to northern campers. It just seems we always pick the coldest time of the year to camp. So once again, it was COLD for south Louisiana and we were camping. Sitting under a three sided tent with a propane barn heater radiating heat into the tent seemed like paradise until someone said “I smell gas”. Before anyone could determine where the gas smell was coming from, the heater caught fire from a propane leak. Most of the women were in the tent and looked like ants running in all directions! John having many, many years of Boy Scout experience, ran to Cajunville and grabbed the fire extinguisher. With two shots the fire was out and we were all gathering again to figure out what had happened. Needless to say we have no pictures of the event since that was the last thing on anyone’s mind. We do have pictures of the before when we were enjoying the warmth of the heaters. There are also pictures showing just how cold it was in south Louisiana January 2011.
Thank goodness we have not had much experience with fire extinguishers and because of this we have learned a lot about fire extinguishers. For instance, did you know that once you use a fire extinguisher no matter how short the shot, it has to be refilled? Once the compressed air is released the extinguisher will not work again. Laurie learned that when she brought one of our fire extinguishers in for servicing.
We now have two fully charged fire extinguishers and are ready to “Travel with Cajunville” into our next chapter of RVing.
