The Day Germany Beat England at Soccer

When I was a student, I was lounging around as only students do when one of those drop-in guests that always seem to be present in student digs asked the question -- "Do you smell something burning?" It did not take long to find the source of the smell -- it was coming from the attached garage. Now this multiple-occasional drop-in guest who slept most nights on the sofa went into a complete panic running around the house screaming "We're all going to die! Get out! Get out!" He proceeded to rescue all the beer he could carry from the fridge while the rest of us gathered in the front yard to drink it.

It is pretty self-evident why attached garages are more dangerous than detached garages. Fires that begin in attached garages are more likely to spread to living areas than fires that originate in detached ones. For this reason attached garages should be sealed from living areas restricting the potential spread of fire long enough to allow you to escape.

As I am sure you are aware, vaguely aware, or totally clueless, (select your own level of awareness) a lot of stuff gets stored in a garage without much thought as to the dangers they pose. And cars have been known to leak oil or gasoline onto the garage floor. So you might have a lot of stuff just waiting to burst into flames, at the first sign of a spark. So just keep the cigarette lighter out of the garage. But wait! You probably have a water heaters or a boiler in the garage. These can create sparks and ignite fumes or fluids. Then there are car batteries, which can spark under certain conditions not to mention some one (back to my student house) fooling around with tools and equipment such as welders or compressors, with sparking motors, all competing for the honor of starting  a fire.

Since an attached garage is such a hazard, wouldn't you think the building codes would insist on levels of protection to stop a fire getting from the garage to the house? Well they do! But these codes are routinely ignored or home owners with a subliminal death wish set about destroying these defenses. Favorite modifications by home owners with this type of subliminal burning desire to die are: cutting holes in fire doors so Whiskers or Rover can stroll in and out at will and thus providing a fire with a quick route into the house. The other common death trick is the replacement of that ugly (fire) door with a normal door with nice panels and a modern clean appearance, which a fire can burn through in a couple of minutes. See how easy it is to turn your home into a death trap! But there is even more you can do to ensure that the house goes up in flames. How about the attic over the garage? Why not store paints, solvents, old carpets, reams of paper and old books up there? Then the flames have something to work with as they burst through the attic hatch which has no weather seal sending the whole house up in flames in moments!

Going back to my student house for a moment -- the door to the garage had a closing arm ensuring that the door remained closed unless some genius found a way to prop it open. Since there were six geniuses, myself included, in the house that day this was not a problem and the door was wedged open! It should be obvious that a fire door is only effective if it is closed.

Our student house had safety features and although we were all undoubtedly geniuses, we only succeeded in defeating one fire prevention method. We propped the fire door open. Had we been more on our game that day we could have removed the weather seal from around the attic hatch, loaded the garage with gallons of gasoline, piled up discarded paper and furniture around the water heater together with bottles of assorted flammable chemicals to ensure the fire got a good start. Fortunately, we were not that cleaver.

So let me finish my student story.  I did not tell you how the fire started, did I? That quiet Saturday we were all gathered to watch a soccer match, England v Germany. A BBQ constructed by one of the engineering students had been relocated to the garage because we were in England and it was raining. The BBQ was proving difficult to light so one of my house mates was playing the flames of a welding torch over the wet coals while another blew air from a compressor into the bottom to provide a better draft. All was fine until another student decided that a bit of gasoline might hurry things along. That's when the fire started. It was not the best day of my student life and to add insult to injury, England lost! The entire episode was burned into my memory.

What's in your garage?