Fire at Michigan State Champs

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by Jaci

I hate to be 'that person', but it has to be said.

Why did it take so long to grab a fire extinguisher that should have been ready at the field?
Why is there a group of volunteers all standing around a robot with a roaring fire and a live battery inside it?
Why are there volunteers sticking their hands inside and/or near the robot, let alone fanning the fire?

It seems to me like this reflects a lack of training for what to do in this situation. I would expect volunteers to be properly inducted about what to do in the event of an emergency such as this one. We've got 6 highly dangerous machines on the field and dozens more behind the curtain, all with massive batteries and electrical currents running through them, but it seems that no one knows what to do in the (quite likely) event that something goes wrong.

We're always saying that "Safety comes first", but it's events like this that make me question "are we really living up to that?"

It seems to me that they were searching for a dry chemical fire extinguisher apposed to a more common co2 fire extinguisher in order to keep parts of the robot salvageable.

The likelihood hood of the fire spreading was very low but, it did slightly concern me when they started to poke around inside of the robot. I was also expecting with that size flame that the bumper fabric would eventually catch on fire. Overall it just seemed foolish to poke around.

The reaction time could have definitely been better and this is a situation that volunteers should be better prepared for but the likelihood is pretty low.

A more accessible fire extinguisher is really all they need.