I feel obligated to correct the fire one.
Hello, tumblr. friendly neighborhood firefighter here. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES GET WET OR PUT WET THINGS ON YOU IN A FIRE. NEVER. And I’ll tell you why. It’s kind of counterintuitive because you’re like hey water =\= fire, right? True. Sort of.
What does a pot of water do when you put it on the stove?
What does it do when it boils?
Take the Carr fire in California, for example. We all know about the tragic deaths of the woman and two young children. They had no possibility of escape so they hid underneath a wet blanket.
That is probably the worst thing you can do. It’s not their fault, it is logical! And something I definitely thought was a good idea before I became a firefighter! However, not only will the fire still burn you because a wet blanket won’t stop a raging wildfire that can melt entire buildings, but the steam burns you sustain will be even worse.
STEAM DOES MORE DAMAGE TO THE BODY AND LUNGS THAN DRY HEAT. It is the worst way to go in a fire. Steam burns are brutal.
So. DONT jump in your pool. Don’t hide under a wet blanket. Don’t cover your face with a wet towel. Always run. If you jump in a small body of water, you will basically be lobsters in a pot of boiling water.
Don’t get anything wet and put it on your face!!!!!! As this article suggests!!!!!! Which is terrible advice!!!! The rest of it is good. But the put a wet towel over your face is definitely not. DONT DO IT. Not only will it do nothing against the smoke, it will heat up and steam and as you’re breathing it in, like I said earlier, it will damage your lungs WORSE than if it was dry.
The only time water is a good thing in a fire is if you can DRINK IT. (Or ya know if you’re a firefighter with an engine and high pressure capacity hose)
This goes for garden hoses too! Against a raging house fire or wildfire they will do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. And often in house fires regular ol water can make it worse because of the different chemicals that can be involved.
The best advice for surviving a house or wildfire is to GET SOME PLACE THAT ISNT ON FIRE OR THAT WOULD CATCH ON FIRE IN THE NEAR FUTURE.
Examples: golf courses, large areas of pavement ie EMPTY parking lots (cars are flammable and tend to be bomb-like when they catch fire) rock outcroppings, places that have ALREADY been burned and are cool (no fuel to burn= no fire) highways!!!!
And most of all let the firefighters do the work. Save yourself from breathing in carcinogenic smoke that will kill you before you can do any good and leave it to the men and women in heavy heat resistant gear and breathing apparatuses that train every day to handle these worst case scenarios.
Stay safe out there folks.
One more bit: GO TO YOUR LOCAL FIRE DEPARTMENTS COMMUNITY INFORMATION SESSIONS THAT TEACH YOU ABOUT FIRE SAFETY! There’s a lot of misinformation circulating the internet so trust they peeps that do it for a living.
Tl;dr: don’t ever put water on or around yourself in the event of a fire. It’s always bad. Except if the only option is jump into the ocean cuz a forest fire isn’t going to boil the sea water. Other than that, always run. Always put yourself somewhere else than burning materials.
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