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This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
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Author
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Topic: Popcorn going stale?
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Monte L Fullmer
Film God
Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004
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posted 08-23-2018 02:19 PM
Worked at at 4plex in the late 1980's where we had a 32oz Cretor's President from the early 1980's.
This was when you could adjust the T-stat to get the kettle hot as you want it...and hotter the better yields would come out of that kettle. We loved that popper and so did the patrons making comment on how our popcorn tasted, where we had the best tasting popcorn in the city.
Sad is that you really had to keep an eye (more like an ear) when the popping kernel speed was really slowing down, that was the signal to do the dump and do the cycle over again.
I was upstairs in the booth and got a call that the kettle was on fire.
Barreled downstairs and I couldn't see inside the lobby.
There was a fire alright and a big one, but the newly installed ast mgr did a major freak show by, instead of getting a cup of salt, which was right down by the seed bin, to throw in the kettle to extinguish the fire, she grabbed the ABC extinguisher and shot the whole bottle into the kettle itself and everywhere.
Course, that hot kettle burned the ABC stuff burned like mad and coated everything in the lobby with white.
We had to evacuate and close down the complex due to the potential hazards of the dust-sent the patrons out the exit door.
Our inventory had to be written off that was in the cases.
We had to get a new kettle since all of that ABC shot in the kettle had turned solid due to the heat - it was like glass.
We spent the rest of the day cleaning up the powder.
DM came in the next day to access the damage, heavily, to almost a threat to the mgr of the procedures of handling an extinguisher and other fire safety concerns that was related to this incident.
As for that ast mgr ... she quit that next day also. That stress really took it out of her.
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Randy Stankey
Film God
Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 08-23-2018 09:18 PM
Regardless of which recipe you use or what order you put the oil and popcorn into the kettle, the most important thing is that somebody is paying attention.
I have seen people catch a popper on fire doing it both ways, oil first or corn first. In all cases, it happened because nobody was watching the popper the way they should.
I was also there when a kid caught a popper on fire because he connected a BIB of root beer to the oil pump then tried to pop popcorn with full strength root beer syrup! The sugar burned into a black, rock-hard clump at the bottom of the kettle and the acid in the syrup, heated to 400+ degrees, stripped the plating from the kettle and pitted the base metal. The "spider" was scorched to the bottom of the pan, the shaft was broken and the motor was trashed. It was impossible to get the caked root beer syrup out of the oil pump. It, pretty much, trashed the whole inside of the popper, costing a couple-few thousand dollars to repair and replace all the burned and gummed-up parts... yet the kid who did it wasn't even written up.
The moral of the story is that 99% of popper fires happen because people aren't paying attention.
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 08-25-2018 01:30 PM
Then again, Randy, whoever put the two bibs in a location that would allow a kid who's a half bubble off plumb (love that expression) to be able to easily interchange the two wasn't all that plumb either. Cretors saw the possibility of a human error and went so far as to used incompatible connectors. And while you can't predict every mistake that human beings are capable of ingeniously inventing to thwart safety mechanisms (in the old days of lamphouses, how many exhaust safety vanes would you guess were tied off so they wouldn't trip the interlock switch?), maybe management shouldn't have located that root beer hose that closet to the oil spigot.
quote:
Course, that hot kettle burned the ABC stuff like mad and coated everything in the lobby with white. We had to evacuate and close down the complex due to the potential hazards of the dust-sent the patrons out the exit door.
Our inventory had to be written off that was in the cases. We had to get a new kettle since all of that ABC shot in the kettle had turned solid due to the heat - it was like glass. We spent the rest of the day cleaning up the powder.
Been there Randy and it was less than pretty and even more costly. All I can say is, GET RID of ALL dry powder chemical fire extinguishers anywhere in your purview! The dry chemical extinguishers use Monoammonium Phosphate, while yes, it will put out that fire, but woe is to the people who need to do the clean up. But worse than that -- we had a UPS that bust in to flames in a server room and I grabbed the extinguish that was right there in the corner...how luck for me. Yes, it put out the fire, but the superfine chemical powder migrates EVERYWHERE with the slightest air current and way beyond where you spread it, even into adjacent rooms. If you were talking about it just messing stuff to clean up, that would be one thing, but this stuff CORRODES METAL...in a server room. We eventually needed to replace ALL the CAT5e patch bays, replace most of the cards in a Panasonic Business Digital PBX system, totally replace a marquee control system not to mention every patch cord, keyboard, mouse, etc., that was in the room. The stuff got into every piece of equipment, corroding internal contacts. Stuff started to fail within a month. Modular jacks and sockets became intermittent. You'd open a patchbay only to find a yellow-white powder on everything in it. Everything became unreliable.
It is also a severe irritant to the lungs if breathed in, which of course someone using a fire extinguisher to put out a fire rarely has the where with all to think of putting on a face mask to avoid breathing it in.
Come to find, every fire extinguisher in the PAC -- the projection booths, the recording studios, the lighting control rooms -- every one was outfitted with an effin dry powder extinguisher. We replaced ALL of them with CO2 extinguishers which are just as effective (but yes, more expensive) and unlike the dry chemical, the CO2 completely dissipates with in a 30 or so seconds of being sprayed and without leaving any residue. I strongly recommend you check what fire extinguishers you have and if they are not CO2 -- replace them ASAP. You sure as hell don't to be caught needing to use a dry chemical anywhere near expensive electronic equipment in an emergency; near a digital projector?!!
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Randy Stankey
Film God
Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 08-25-2018 08:03 PM
I once got an emergency call from a theater in Bristol, VA by a kid who was in the midst of a projector fire on a busy Saturday night.
He told me that he was going to get a fire extinguisher but I told him, flat-out, "NO!"
This was on a Christie console. The best we could figure, one of the diodes went out (as is common for that kind of power supply) and somebody replaced the diodes without even looking at the symbols printed on them. The just pulled a hand full of diodes out of the box and put them in randomly. Of course, the breaker tripped immediately but some retard took duct tape and taped the breaker in the ON position then tried to run the show.
Well... DUH!!... The power supply went up in flames!
Captain Obvious was standing there by the burning projector, belching smoke, asking me what to do. I had to yell at him, three times, to turn the damn thing off!
He wanted to use an extinguisher but I knew he didn't know how to use one properly. ANY extinguisher!
At the time, Cinemark had two types of extinguishers in their booths: Halon and ABC/Dry Chemical. Halon for electronics/projectors and ABC for anything else.
I was certain that, even if he wasn't in a panic, he couldn't tell the two apart... again, this boy was about a half a bubble off...and even if he picked the right one by random chance, he'd probably just spray it all over the room.
I told him, loudly, that projector consoles are made out of steel, partly for the purpose of containing a fire and that if he would just turn it off, it would probably burn itself out in a few minutes.
He kept asking me what happens if the fire spreads and I told him (again...yelling) that if the fire spreads outside the projector a fire extinguisher would be useless anyway... just head for the nearest fire exit and pull the fire alarm on your way out.
Anyhow, after much hollering and gnashing of teeth, I did get him to turn off the power and, within a minute, the fire did burn itself out.
Once things had settled down, I told him that, if he did use a dry powder extinguisher, he would have ruined every piece of electronic equipment in the area, costing TENS of thousands of dollars worth of damage.
I still have pictures of the aftermath.
It's one of the main reasons I ended up quitting that job. ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
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Monte L Fullmer
Film God
Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004
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posted 09-11-2018 03:14 PM
quote: Randy Stankey
It's one of the main reasons I ended up quitting that job
I have a similar, yet not fire related, but it's still a classic.
I was Presentation Mgr and head Screwdriver User at a 21 plex. We had full Christie: 35GPS, CH40 consoles and AW3R platters.
This goes back to 1998. Still doing hot with Titanic.
I work the evening shifts while I had two guys doing the morning and afternoon. Morning guy leaves and I take over his shift to close.
I get there one day and the afternoon guy who ran East Booth tells me this story and laughing hard at the same time.
Plex was large enough to have the building split for each operator to do their own set of booths.
He tells me that the guy who ran West Booth had an issue. Fellow claims to be booth smart being in his early 40's.
He radios over to the guy in East Booth to come over to "verify" something. East Booth guy goes over and just about hits the ceiling in what he saw.
There was that guy just standing there watching this projector beat itself to death since both loops have collapsed and beating the crud out of the print.
East Booth Guy immediately shuts down the projector, resets the loops and restart. Then, he ask the West Booth guy on where is his common sense to shut down the machine when there was a problem like this.
West Booth guy said that he has common sense, but just wanted some outside visual verification that there was a problem before he commences to shut down the projector.
We had to order another reel since that one had sprocket holes all knackered out.
That was 20 yrs ago ... and East Booth guy and I still talk about this since he went on to do IT in a firm. I tease him, "before you start anything, better get it verified by me first..!"
Yep, one of the many reasons for digital.
-Monte
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