Ktak..Bom (Murphy's Law in action)

Assalamualaikum :)..

23 December 2009

0730:

Received an order from bapak to buy a new cooking gas cylinder (wasn't the current one jz bought bout a week ago? No matter..)

1430:

Since I'm in no mood of cookin, and the fact that I can survive for a day without eating, I decided to buy that cylinder a lil bit late. Went to the grocery and order a cylinder

1500:

The grocery guy came with the cylinder. Was going to replace the old cylinder with the new one. “funny, the current one seems to be still heavy..”. [Malay McGyver Mode: ON]. After a few amateur-like inspection, I found the 'issue'. There's this turner on the hose connecting the cylinder to the stove. It's completely closed. So I turned it anti-clockwise to turn it on, so the gas could flow. Heard the gas hissing, and I said to myself, “that's the problem”.

Seemed to me I'm right. lit the stove and the fire came out. Then the fire went smaller before it went off altogether.

“Erm, I jz need to turn the knob (the turner that needs to be turned anti-clockwise..) even more”. I turned off the stove and went to watch some tv, knowing what the 'problem' was.

1730:

Knowing there's no problem with the stove, I decided to boil water to make Milo. “Ktak, Ktak” the stove flickered but no fire. “Ooh, the hose..”. I turned the knob anti clock-wise, all the way, knowing that when I turn the knob a little, the fire jz came out for a short period of time.

Heard the hissing. “Great, the gas is flowing..”. Turn the knob on the stove, “Ktak..Kbooff”. There's this big fire. Not that shocked at first, coz I thought the fire would subside. It took me jz about 1 second to convince me I'm wrong. Tried to turn the stove off. Then the knob on the stove came off. Literally. My sister watched in horror. I asked for some powder, (coz it would be stupid to pour water on the stove, there still traces of cookin oil left..). The powder did some good. Well, you can say no good at all, coz the fire was too big. Now, with this situation, even a moron wouldn't stay. So I went out of the house, with the fire still burning on my stove.

My little sister went to my neighbour's house. I ride my motorcycle, went to the nearest school, asked the guard for any fire extinguisher. The rain started to fall, I wore no helmet. The rain started to fall heavier, how dramatic. Good timing, hehe. Back to the guard, she said the school don't have any that she knew of (what??!!) . She asked me to ask the school office. I said I had no time. She offered me her cellphone to call the emergency service.

Lesson for all: On cellphone (in Malaysia), the emergency number = 112, not 999.

Thanks makcik :D :D

I dialed 112, and there's a beep, then the line went off. Great.

Lesson #2: If you can find a public phone, better use the public phone and dial the emergency service.

I found 2 public phones, tried to dial 999, heck, the public phones not workin.

Lesson #3: Public phones suck. Well, the ones who make the public phones suck, suck more.

Went to the nearest grocery, borrowed their phone to dial 999.Thanks Pacik kedai

Lesson #4: It's better if you could remember the phone number of your local fire department. That would save time.

After all that hectic, all I can do was wait. The agony of expecting the kitchen to blow, while at the same time you hope nothing would happen, was indescribable. Mind you there were 2 gas cylinders in my kitchen. 1 fully loaded, the other bout half. With big fire around, what else do you expect. Oh, 10 minutes has passed since the first fire.

To cut long story short, the fire engine arrived about 10 minutes after the call. It's a relief. They went inside and put off the fire. By this time, the fire was up to the ceiling. And the smoke, well, all I can say is, the deadly fume of melting stove, isn't a good thing to breath with. Fortunately, there was nothing around that can spread the fire even more, but the gas cylinders.

I asked the firefighter bout the cylinders, they said the cylinders were designed not to blow on this scale of fire. It will only explode when the outside temperature reaches 1000-2000 degrees Celsius. This fire juz now, was juz a baby (hehe, I add this myself :p). Well, baby or not, that really got me. Thanks Hollywood for showing every single fire with gas cylinders around, spells explosion.

Lesson #5: No matter how careful you are, when something bad is about to happen it just will. Just preparing not to cause something bad isn't enough, we also have to prepare for the worst.

Lesson #6: Accidents wont just happen on the news. If we're not ready enough, we will be the news.

Lesson #7: Fire extinguisher isn't a bad investment.

See all those wires? Scary huh..huhu

Thank God nothing bad happened :D :D, other than the experience. Well, it's a quite nice experience actually. Not everyone had this happened in their own house other than watch it on the news happening to others.

Thanks to everyone for your help. Thanks to my neighbour for giving the first shelter to my lil sis. Thanks to my other neighbour for entering the house with his fire extinguisher. Thanks all :D :D.

Jz sharing my experience. Cheers :D :D