I have a different philosophy on this for theater and art departments.  I want EVERY teacher and student trained in how to use an extinguisher.  It is a skill they just might need when they are at home, in their own studios or shops, or in some other situation.  Over the 45 years I have lived on the top floor of this ridiculously overpriced walk-up tenement in NYC, there have been 5 serious fires. There is a big, yearly-checked extinguisher in my kitchen. And how I wished I had had it during one of those fires.

This fire was set by someone on the landing just under the roof.  I fought it with buckets of water my husband handed to me from the bathroom while hot lead rained on me from the melting solder of the skylight and standing on a floor so hot it was hurting my feet through the soles of my shoes.  We clearly were not going to win this battle, but we held it down until the Mercer Street Fire Department got there.  They said if we had not done this, the entire roof would have been lost.

Now was this the smartest move to make?  I leave it to you.  But I'm still in my rent controlled heaven with a relatively unleaky roof over head.  And I knew if the fire got out of control, we only had to retreat into the apartment and go down the street side fire escape.

(If you wonder why my husband didn't fight the fire, the fire exploded into flame so fast that we had no time to prepare.  My husband was shoeless and burned his feet on hot hall floor.  I was wearing shoes at the time.)

You can't tell what kind of circumstances people encounter in life.  I'd prepare everyone to use an extinguisher along with an unambiguous written policy in the 1910.38 OSHA emergency plan stating that evacuation is the preferred option and that evacuation is mandatory if there is any danger that a) the fire will get out of handand b) there is not an obvious plan B escape route.

And pardon me if I have misinterpreted this conversation and many others on this same subject over the years, but there seems to two subtexts that are always present and unspoken.  These are 1) how to reduce the amount of training required and 2) how to CYA.   Maybe instead, we all could also consider that some of our students may end up in NYC or some other slum and need all the survival skills they can get.

Monona Rossol, M.S., M.F.A., Industrial Hygienist