Fire Safety: Could this happen to you?

A long time ago (I believe I was 13 years of age), a teacher of mine had each of the students write a report about fire safety. With the help of my father, we came up with what is below. It's light reading and I hope you enjoy it. Please share the link with others who may care to take a short mental excursion. You may freely copy and share the story with others as long as you attribute it to this blog.

Note: Any similarities between the characters in this story and anyone you may know is merely coincidence... or is it?

All the best,
Derfster

The scene opens and Mr. Snuffy is sitting there, carelessly smoking on the sofa. The cigarette ash falls down and sets fire to the sofa. Mrs. Snuffy has just started cooking dinner. She set the heat on the range very high and has a lot of fat in the pan. She runs to investigate what Mr. Snuffy is yelling about. The high heat makes the fat splatter that hits the cat that has been lying on the kitchen table. The cat, which is startled, jumps off the table and lands on the sleeping dog. The flaming dog runs into a lamp with a frayed cord. The sparks from the frayed lamp cord set fire to the drapes. Mr. Snuffy tries to tear the burning drapes off the wall and yanks so hard that he falls backward into the fireplace screen and knocks the burning log into the middle of the living room.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Snuffy runs back into the kitchen to see what frightened the cat. When she sees the splattered fat, she tries to wipe it up with paper towels, but the high flames set fire to the paper towels and the flames get into the pan. She picks up the pan to throw it into the sink, but burns her fingers on the handle and drops it into the middle of the floor. Meanwhile, upstairs, their son Derf comes running down to see what all the commotion is. He trips on the steps, falls onto the table carrying the liquor. The liquor falls onto the floor, breaks, and sets fire to the carpet. Wanda, now, comes running over to see what the problem is. She still has the stereo headphones on, pulls the stereo off the stand; it breaks and sends sparks spewing all over the place, setting fire to the carpet.

Mrs. Snuffy, remembering that baking soda will put out grease fires, reaches for the box, but accidentally grabs a box of phosphate detergent. She dumps that all over the fire and it proceeds to explode in a big flash. Mr. Snuffy tries to stamp out the fire on the living room rug and sets fire to his pants. Mr. Snuffy struggles to get his pants off and trips. He lands on the family pet pig, which takes off and knocks over the TV on the stand. The TV knocks over the birdcage, and the family’s pet chicken flies out through the fire in the kitchen. The chicken catches fire and flies through the house. The burning chicken flies into the bedroom and sets fire to the drapes. Wanda, trying to beat out the flames on the drapes with a broom, manages to break the window. The squealing pig runs into the ironing board with iron still turned on on top of it. The iron falls down and hits the floor and proceeds to start burning its way through the basement.

In the meantime, Mrs. Snuffy who is in the kitchen, decides she wants to extinguish the flames with the spray head from the sink. She turns on the water, grabs the spray hose, runs to hard, and disconnects the hose and the water proceeds to squirt up to the ceiling. Mr. Snuffy finally manages to get his flaming pants off and runs into the bathroom to throw them into the toilet bowl. Unfortunately, Mrs. Snuffy was trying to remove some toilet stains with gasoline. As he throws the pants into the toilet bowl, he is greeted by a blinding flash.

The fire from the range has now gotten behind the refrigerator. Mrs. Snuffy and Derf are trying to move the refrigerator further out from the wall to put out the fire, but it gets caught on the floor, tips, and falls on the floor that has already been weakened by the fire. It falls right through the floor and ends up in the basement. The refrigerator lands on the gas dryer, breaking the gas pipe. The gas is ignited by the pilot light and the fire begins to burn heartily in the basement. The daughter, who was downstairs in the basement doing the wash, is startled by the gas flame, jumps back and knocks over the shelf storing the paint and paint thinner which then crashes on the floor and begins to catch fire. The living room is, by now, a raging inferno and Mr. Snuffy remembers that Grandma is still upstairs.

Mr. Snuffy runs outside and grabs the extension ladder out of the truck to climb up to her bedroom. He puts the ladder up and begins climbing up. But the ground, soft from the recent rain, gives way, the ladder slips, and he falls with the ladder on top of the outhouse, almost killing Grandpa. Grandpa has the best bowel movement he’s had in years. Grandpa, in a fit of anger, climbs out of the rubble of the outhouse, grabs a board and throws it at Mr. Snuffy. His aim isn’t too good, so it goes right in through the bedroom window and knocks over the lamp on the night table.

Mr. Snuffy seeing that the ladder probably won’t do the trick tries to throw a rope up to Grandma. He ties a rock to the end of the rope and throws it up to the window. Unfortunately, he throws it too hard, hits Grandma, and shorts out the battery in her hearing aid. The noise startles Grandma and she flings her knitting across the room. The steel knitting needles hit the electric blanket and cause a short in it which proceeds to set fire to the bed. Grandma, being angered by being hit by the rock, throws the rock out the window again. It lands on the windshield of the family pickup truck, breaks the windshield, and crashes through the dashboard. The impact causes a short in the wiring, setting fire to the car’s engine.

Grandpa, recognizing that Grandma is still in danger, sets the ladder up to the window again to try to get Grandma out of the flaming bedroom. Mr. Snuffy, in the meantime, attempts to back the burning pickup truck out of the driveway. Little does he realize as he backs up, but the rope connected to the ladder is caught on the pickup’s bumper. The force of the rapidly accelerating truck pulls the ladder out from under Grandpa. Grandma, who during all the commotion had just climbed out of the window onto the ladder, is left hanging from the windowsill.

Mr. Snuffy continues backing out of the driveway and promptly backs into the fire engine that had been called by the neighbors. From the force of the collision, the fire engine’s ladder, swings around and narrowly misses Grandma who is still hanging from the windowsill. Grandma grabs the fireman’s ladder without letting go of the window. The rotted wood gives way and the side wall of the house falls down, narrowly missing Grandpa, but destroying Mrs. Snuffy’s prize Dandelion patch.

Mr. Snuffy climbs out of the wreckage of the pickup truck and runs back toward the house to try to rescue Mrs. Snuffy and the rest of the family still inside. The daughter in the basement, by stepping on the refrigerator, manages to climb up into the kitchen just as the iron has finished burning through the main beam. The first floor collapses into the basement. The firemen get Mrs. Snuffy, Wanda, Derf, and the other daughter out just in time. The firemen manage to get the family and the pets out of the house just in time. Mr. Snuffy, in order to save the second car, tries to back it out of the driveway. However, he did not look where he was going. He backs the car into a tree, the force of which snapped off the tree. The second floor had already been weakened by the collapse of the first floor and the main beam. But, the branch, like the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back, hit the roof of the house causing, the second floor to settle down into the basement along with the first floor.

The scene closes with all the members of the family staring at the rubble of what moments ago, was their home.