What an awful smell!

[cjsmith]

Fire in our building today. AWFUL electrical smell. Couldn't find the source. Server room? A/C units?? Evacuated everyone, firemen showed up, we all counted noses while the guys went in...

Turned out it was a fluorescent light ballast self-destructing. My GOODNESS that can stink up a big building awfully darn fast.

We got four fire trucks and a police car for a broken light!

Comments

[eichin.livejournal.com]

Years back I talked about doing an IAP course on "Olfactory Diagnosis"... basically, crisp different components and have people smell them, to learn the distinctions between capacitors, semiconductors, plastic casings, etc. Never figured out a way to keep the safety office from objecting :-) and didn't get around to hosting it somewhere else instead. Still, it's a "useful" skill...

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Times like this I wish we had a better vocabulary for smells. Burning plastic smell "etches my nose" while an exploded ceramic package is more "papery/ashy" -- I think this is just my synesthesia, not good descriptions! But if we could write stuff like that down, people could get some idea by reading. (Possibly as useful as learning CPR by reading. heh.)