Today my wife was grilling some chicken for dinner when she yelled to me that the chicken was on fire. I walked over from my chore of planting a tree and sprayed some water on it from a squirt bottle. When that failed, I turned off the burners and sprayed more water on it. I fired up the grill after the fire was out and went back to my task. My wife then called again a few minutes later and said the grill was on fire. This time, I ran over and tried to put it out with a squirt bottle, but that was fruitless. My wife told me to get a hose to put it out (she was more put together than I was to think of what to do). I ran and got the hose which happened to have a fire hose type nozzle on it and I put out the fire by dousing the grill with water. My major concern was that if the propane tank got too hot, it could explode.

Luckily since I used water to put out the fire, my wife salvaged dinner and finished the cooking in the oven; it was quite tasty despite the fire. After we looked back on the fire, my wife pointed out that it was a grease fire and she expected me to use a dry chemical fire extinguisher. I didn’t even think about using a fire extinguisher, so we’re lucky that my wife managed to remain calm under pressure and tell me what to do.

I think I’ll stick to my day job and let the professionals put out the real fires.