Throwing water on an out of control Bunsen burner flame. Yes or no?

[ruethewhirl]

Setting is a dental surgery. I'll provide more context shortly, but for now I just want to get some reactions to the question.

YABU = this is OK
YANBU = this isn't the right procedure

Yeah, they're shitting themselves.

With good reason to, to be honest.

"Couldn't produce a flame big enough to do damage" ... it's not like the tiny flame on a match can start a fire of any size, right? 😉

I would report it to the relevant authority regardless. I am not sure they have the capacity to effectively learn from it given how many staff members didn't know what to do and the actions that they took.

Fair comment 😄The whole situation was so unexpected and unsettling that I wasn't thinking as rationally as I might have been.

Any more thoughts on this, OP? I do urge you to report it to the HSE. If they've done everything they say they have done, then the visit will just reinforce to them the importance of fire safety and training. If they haven't, reporting them should mean that the do it, and it could prevent somebody from being hurt in a really nasty incident in the future.

This reminded me of Moss in The IT Crowd writing letter to the fire brigade.

This is what I'm worried about too. It's been ticking over in the back of my mind since it happened. My difficulty is that DM (who has Alzheimer's and struggles hugely with dental appointments as well as with change, I'm her carer) is halfway through getting dentures made atm and if anything rebounded back on the practice it'd be obvious who'd talked. I think I'd struggle to get her in elsewhere on the NHS if this practice 'sacked' her so to speak. Then again, like you say, I'm worried someone else could get hurt if this practice doesn't address the apparent failings in its fire policy, so it feels selfish to only think of how this affects DM and me. It's been a hectic week but I'm off work tomorrow and planning to wrap my head around all this properly.

If they ‘sacked’ your mother for this they’d be opening themselves up to escalating complaints and bad publicity - likeliest outcome is they will be extra careful and make sure nothing goes wrong around the pair of you in future.

hopefully they’ll reviewed their procedures and do some training so it won’t happen again and if it does they’ll know what to do and what not to do.

They'd never be able to be sure it was you if you reported it anonymously. It could easily have been one of their employees.

This is why P50 extinguishers should be standard. People panic in an emergency. I remember when my dad went through a water pipe he ran around trying to find some way to wrap it to stem the flow rather than just turn off the stopcock. People just cannot think straight in panic.

P50 is a single extinguisher for all fires. Replaces every other extinguisher (bar a fire blanket for chip pan fire). Doesn’t need servicing like normal ones. You just replace every 10 years. No idea why they are not standard.