Does it Smell Like Gas in Here?

My last day on started out pretty slow but we were all in some sort of mood as the evening went on. Not necessarily bad moods, just quiet and hungry until we were interrupted by a dispatch over the house speakers. It was what we call a "still alarm" which means it only requires one engine company for situations such as fire alarms, vehicle fires, and smells of gas which is what we were dispatched to this time around. We head out to the pumper and I take a look at our computer which as usual didn't have any important information on it. Now my Engineer, I love him to death and he is damn good at the job but has no clue where he's going half the time. I have been trying to train him on how to find out where we are going based on the address because street numbers get larger away from downtown and get larger going South. So testing him, I turn and ask which way we needed to turn out of the station and he of course, with an unsure look on his face points left. I chuckle and tell him to go right as I hit en route on the computer.

We get rolling and end up fighting traffic as we make our way across the highway into another engine companies territory. They must have been out on another run which is why we were sent that way. Unfamiliar with the neighborhoods on that side, I begin studying the map, looking at a zig zag of turns we have to make.  We find our way fairly easy and pull up to find the resident standing outside in the yard waiting for us. His family is sitting in a car on the street so i'm thinking that something must really be wrong in there. Usually when the family is outside or someone is frantically flagging us down, the call will turn out to be something decent. I guess we can give them a few merit points for safety. I get out and walk up to the resident who tells me that his house smells like gas, mainly in the kitchen area. That is not uncommon so we didn't think of anything out of the ordinary and made our way in the house. Once inside, there is definitely some sort of smell but i'm not convinced it's actually gas at this point. We've had plenty of these types of calls in the past and more times than I would like found out the smell was coming from trash or even old food in the oven.

Once in the kitchen, I swear we took a time machine back to 1983. Wow what a place. The tile floor is cracked and the all wooden kitchen was just a sight for sore eyes. The stove in question was covered in a mix of grease and rust while the microwave above it was so old that it only had two buttons, off and on. There may have been some sort of dial timer on there but geeze. We go straight for the stove and pull it out to check the gas line in the back which looked alright but I sent one of the firefighters to shut the main gas line off to be safe. Now that we have been there a few minutes, the smell becomes more of burning than gas so we begin to investigate further and end up seeing a few embers coming from the wall area behind the stove. I go back to the engine and grab my thermal imaging camera so I can take a look inside the wall but didn't really find anything significant. At this point our mood is fading away as we start giggling at all the anomalies in this place which is truly hard to explain in words. Because of the embers, I send someone to find the breaker box in the back yard and he immediately comes back in cracking up. Apparently he saw some unknown "thing" that scuttled through the yard yard then jumped into the black nasty pool, not to be seen again. This call is just getting better and better.

Here is a look at the stove before we continue:

Yep those are bugs in there

As we continue looking for the source of the smell and embers, the floor tile i'm standing on breaks right in half. I'm no contractor but perhaps putting grout between the tiles would resolve this issue. Trying to control our laughter, I try looking behind the stove but get some sort of grease on my hands from touching the counter. This call is going downhill fast but before we went any further, we donned our medical gloves to prevent any more interactions with the grease monster. Well it turns out that there was never a gas leak, but the stove had melted wires in the back which were starting to burn and put off the odor we were smelling. This wouldn't be too bad except for the fact I had to keep explaining to the resident that his appliances are too old, not to mention a major major fire hazard which i'm not really sure he understood. I guess this kind of living is just normal to some people. I told him that the stove has to stay unplugged and he can not EVER EVER use it again. Part of that was for his own health reasons let alone the damn fire hazard. Well good news, it was time to go eat dinner!

It still baffles me why people call 911 for things like this. A year or so ago I was at my mother in law's house, sitting on the couch and began to smell something burning. 911 didn't even cross my mind as I started looking around until I found a wall outlet with black charring on the cover. Simple enough, we shut off the breaker and replaced the outlet. People lack common sense these days which is a bad sign for our future.