Unbelievable!

I'm not going to name names but I know the Nipawin readers will be able to identify the guilty parties in the following anecdote.

As I have written about already, I have our generator tightly enclosed in a plywood box. The box is perilously close to the manifold on the 8-92 but I have it protected there with a heat shield made of of tin wrapped with manifold heat tape. I think that is safe and I think the genset inside the box is safe as well. It doesn't hurt to be super safe though so I have been investigating automatic fire suppression systems. Both spaces are small and well confined so it wouldn't take much of a blast of fire suppression to quickly extinguish a fire IF THE REACTION WAS QUICK ENOUGH. On the other hand, if a fire started while we were going down the highway the massive airflow available to fan the blaze could quickly put it out of control before we even realized that anything bad was happening.

So today I stopped in at the local fire extinguisher shop. I had left a message on another guy's home phone number because I can't remember what name he operates under but I was in town anyway so I decided to visit XXX. I explained my concern and asked if they had any automatic systems. "Why would you be concerned about that?" was the response. Now I have thought this guy was a fool for pretty well as long as I have known him. His wife has always struck me as the brains of the organization with the caveat that she married him but apparently she wasn't there today. And he's in even bigger trouble if the one sitting at the reception desk is supposed to be her replacement - but I digress.

I just wasn't in the mood for an argument so I simply said "I'm not in the mood to argue with you and it sounds like you don't have anything." He said "no" and I left but I have to think that maybe I should have argued just a little bit. I mean really - I've got 3 heat sources (the Kubota diesel engine, the 8-92 diesel engine and the generator head), a couple of fuel sources (diesel fuel and plywood, not to mention the fibreglass panels in the coach) and a confined space that I can't easily monitor. What could possibly go wrong in that situation?

Unbelievable - this clown claims to be in the fire protection business. So I phoned P.A. and got a guy there who instantly understood what I was trying to do, said he had a couple of ideas and would get back to me.