The need for some means to control and combat fire should be high on our list of priorities. With the flammable building materials used in most modern construction, fire prevention is something all of us need to take seriously. This is why every home needs a fire extinguisher within easy reach.

I have a bit of vicarious personal experience here.

In the oil and gas industry, our training includes fire fighting. Therefore, we got an edge over the general public when it comes to this knowledge. It's not uncommon here for there to be car fires burning on the side of the road, and in many of them, company employees passing by have helped to extinguish the fire.

It was in one of these roadside car fires that a relative of one of my neighbors was severely burned in an awful accident that shouldn't have ever happened. Had he had even the tiniest amount of fire safety training under his belt or some degree of caution, everything would have been fine. But this isn't what happened.

This young man received a call from a friend and went to help with the problem. Without any special training (every Venezuelan knows a little bit of mechanical knowledge for when a car stalls), he went to assist and provide some support.

As he arrived, he found that the car's engine was on fire as smoke billowed from the closed hood. He made a terrible mistake: he opened the hood quickly. The amount of incoming oxygen produced a fireball that caught his synthetic clothing on fire.