Fire Prevention

The big blogs have been covering the Bill Kapoun story so I felt I had nothing special to offer on the subject. For my mother and those few others who hadn't heard, Bill, a 26 year old teacher in Seoul, was burned when his apartment caught fire. He didn't have insurance because he was only working part-time and the site linked to above is for fundraising.

UPDATE: Terrible news, Bill Kapoun has passed away. The Korea Times (via The Marmot's Hole and Brian in Jeollanamdo) has the story. Donations are still requested as medical bills to date are enormous.

I still don't have a special or a new viewpoint on the tragedy but I do have selfish questions. Or one question: What are these things?

1...........................2........................3

'1' is above the stove, just over where a person using the stove would stand. I guess that it is an emergency shower, full of water or other fire-smothering material. I have not touched it in three years, nor seen any documentation on usage. What is it, how do I use it, how do I maintain it?
'2' is on my kitchen ceiling. It looks like a smoke detector and I see that it is connected to wires in the ceiling so it doesn't need batteries. It appears to have an LED but the bulb is dark.

'3' is in my livingroom (and similar others in the bedrooms). Again, the LED is dark.

This commenter at the Marmot's Hole bought many smoke detectors and is selling them (at cost) with the proceeds going to Bill Kapoun. My hat goes off to this wonderful person. I, by contrast, am going to look at a smoke detector or two for our apartment.

I am not completely selfish. I will also make a donation to Bill:

Help Bill Fund
P.O. Box 283
Bloomington, IN 47402

IF IN KOREA - direct transfer into this account
KB Bank
794002 04 03 1635
Warren Franklin-William Fund