Welcome to English as a Second Language Podcast, number 855, Learning Fire Safety.
This is English as a Second Language Podcast, episode 855.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from beautiful Los Angeles California, and the Center for Educational Development.
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This episode is a story about learning fire safety learning to make sure that you don't accidentally cause a fire that would damage your house or a building.
Sounds like a good idea.
Let's get started.
The apartment manager asked all of the tenants to come to a short meeting to learn about fire safety.
I didn't want to go, but the manager said that there would be free food.
And who am I to turn down free pizza?
I want to make sure we comply with the fire code.
So I've installed new smoke alarms or replaced the batteries in the older ones, in each apartment and in the hallways.
The fire escapes are in good condition, and there are fire extinguishers in each hallway.
Your job is to keep the inside of your apartments safe.
Keep flammable items away from the fireplace.
And don't overload your electrical outlets.
Any questions?
If not, we're ready for a fire drill.
Nobody told me there would be a fire drill.
I guess I'm ready to stop, drop, and roll as long as I can take the pizza with me.
Our story begins with me, the person telling the story, saying that the apartment manager the person who takes care of the apartment where i live in this story asked all of the tenants, the people who rent apartments, to come to a short meeting to learn about fire safety.
Fire safety are things you should do in order to prevent fires and to keep people safe if there is a fire.
I say that I didn't want to go, but that the manager said that there would be free food available.
And who am I to turn down free pizza?
To turn down is a phrasal verb, which here means to decide not to do something or not to have something, to say no to someone.
I asked a beautiful woman out on a date, and she turned me down.
She said, no, thank you, Jeff.
Well, this was many years ago, of course.
I actually put this in the form of a question, who am I to turn down free pizza?
When we say who am I to do something, we're kind of making a joke about it saying well, I am not an important enough person to say no, or I have to do this, or I don't have any right or any permission to do something differently.
The apartment manager begins then and he sounds a lot like me by saying With the rash of fires in this neighborhood recently, it seemed like a good idea to talk about fire safety with all of you.
A rash.
R-A-S-H is when something is very common, a short period of time, usually when something bad is happening.
If there were four people murdered in the last week, we could talk about a rash of murders here in Los Angeles.
I'm not saying there were.
Maybe they were, but that would be an example of, Or there have been a rash of, cases involving people who are stealing cars.
Usually the word rash is used when something bad happens.
Well, this is a case where something bad is happening.
There have been a rash of fires in the neighborhood.
The manager says that he wants to make sure we comply with the fire code.
To comply C-O-M-P-L-Y means to follow the rules or to follow the laws, to do what you are supposed to do.
The fire code are a series or a set of rules and regulations or laws established to protect people from fires.
So when you build a new building or you build a house, you have to follow the rules to make sure that you're not building something that could be dangerous.
Those rules are called the fire code.
CODE.
The word code is often used to describe government regulations that you have to follow, and if you don't follow them, you could be in trouble.
The manager says he's installed new smoke alarms.
To install I-N-S-T-A-L-L means to put something into place that often, to attach it to something so that it can be used.
I'm going to install a new sink in my bathroom.
I'm going to put it in.
I'm Talk about on our computers installing software.
We download it from the internet or we buy it and we put it onto our hard drive, our computer.
That is also another use of the verb install.
The manager has installed or put in new smoke alarms.
Smoke.
S-M-O-K-E is when something burns and it gives off a certain substance that floats in the air.
If you breathe it, you will probably cough and it could kill you.
Smoke happens when there is a fire.
In fact, there's an old expression where there's smoke, there's fire, meaning if you see an indication of a problem, there probably is a real problem, maybe even more serious than you know.
However, a smoke alarm is a device, a small instrument that makes a noise when there is smoke in the room.
Most houses have smoke alarms, at least a couple of them.
Smoke alarms are required in public buildings.
Well, the apartment manager installed new smoke alarms, or he replaced or put in new batteries in the older ones.
A battery B-A-T-T-E-R-Y is a small object that provides electricity to a machine.
It can often be removed, unless you have certain kinds of phones where the battery can't be removed, at least not by you.
But most batteries are things you can take out and put new ones in, or you can what we would call recharge them.
You can give them more power, new power, so that they will work again.
The manager continues by saying that the fire escapes are in good condition.
A fire escape, E-S-C-A-P-E, is a way of leaving a building in the case of a fire.
We often think about fire escapes as being stairs metal stairs on the outside of a building, so that if you're in a building, you can climb out the window.
You can exit the building through the window onto these stairs that are outside.
We would call them fire escapes.
A fire escape might also be a ladder that is put up on the side of a building or, more typically, dropped down from the window.
Those are examples of fire escapes.
The manager says the fire escapes in the apartment building are in good condition.
They're working fine.
No problems.
And there are fire extinguishers in each hallway.
An extinguisher is something that extinguishes.
The verb to extinguish, E-X-T-I-N-G-U-I-S-H, means to stop something, in this case, from burning.
Usually a fire extinguisher is a metal container, a cylinder, often painted red or yellow, that has special chemicals in it that when you spray it on a fire it will put the fire out.
It will stop the fire.
That's a fire extinguisher.
The manager says the fire extinguishers are in each hallway.
A hallway is a space that connects different rooms in a building or in a house, in this case in the apartment building.
The manager concludes by saying your job, meaning what the tenants, the renters, are supposed to do is keep the inside of your apartments safe.
Flammable, F-L-A-M-M-A-B-L-E, is something that will burn easily.
And if something burns easily, if it can catch fire, we might say easily, you don't want to put it near your fireplace where you might be burning wood to bring heat into your house.
Also, don't overload your electrical outlets, the manager says.
To overload O-V-E-R-L-O-A-D means to put too much pressure or to demand too much of something or someone.
In this case it would be trying to plug in all of your electrical devices into one device electrical circuit, or even one plug, one outlet.
This in some cases can be dangerous and can even start a fire.
Electrical outlets.
O-U-T-L-E-T-S are the things that you plug your power cords into what gives you electricity?
We call those outlets, electrical outlets.
A fire drill.
D-R-I-L-L is an event where people in a building are asked to pretend to imagine that there is a fire.
And practice leaving the building quickly and in an orderly way, usually going outside and all meeting in the same spot.
Fire drills are things that typically happen in schools, especially the elementary and high schools.
We would have a fire drill at least once, sometimes twice, a year, where the fire bell would ring and everyone would have to stand up and walk out of the school in a calm and orderly way.
That's a fire drill.
It's something you don't usually see in a building an office building or a commercial building nowadays, but it is still quite common in schools because we want to train students on what to do if there is a fire.
I end the story by saying nobody told me that there would be a fire drill in.
I guess I'm ready to stop drop and roll, as long as I can take the pizza with me.
To stop drop and roll is a common phrase used to remind people what they should do if they are in a building during a fire.
You stop whatever you're doing.
You drop or fall down to the ground.
And then you roll along the ground to move toward the exit, while preventing or stopping your clothes from catching on fire.
Stop, drop, and roll.
That's the recommended procedure.
Most people, of course, use another procedure.
When a fire occurs, breaks out in their building, and that's run like hell, which is a somewhat vulgar way of saying run really fast.
Now let's listen to the story, this time at a normal speed.
The apartment manager asked all of the tenants to come to a short meeting to learn about fire safety.
I didn't want to go, but the manager said that there would be free food.
And who am I to turn down free pizza?
Thank you all for coming to this meeting about fire safety.
With a rash of fires in this neighborhood recently, it seemed like a good idea to talk about fire safety with all of you.
I want to make sure we comply with the fire code, so I've installed new smoke alarms or replaced the batteries in the older ones, in each apartment and in the hallways.
The fire escapes are in good condition, and there are fire extinguishers in each hallway.
Your job is to keep the inside of your apartment safe.
Keep flammable items away from the fireplace and don't overload your electrical outlets.
Any questions?
If not, we're ready for a fire drill.
Nobody told me that there would be a fire drill.
I guess I'm ready to stop, drop, and roll, as long as I can take the pizza with me.
She never turns down a good idea for a script.
I speak, of course, of our wonderful script writer, Dr. Lucy Say.
Thank you, Lucy.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2012 by the Center for Educational Development.
