Officials issue safety warning after early morning fire

The Association for Rubber Products Manufacturers has conducted the first of two annual domestic hose technical committee meetings to protect U.S. rubber hose and belt standards monitoring and governance.About 30 people participated in the March 25 event in San Antonio and addressed two issues—revision of an industry publication and the hose manufacturer's colored identification code list."One of the main items addressed was the progress on the updating of the hose handbook," said Richard Batzer, ARPM hose technical coordinator. "We made some decisions, and we are now sending these items out for review to select individuals to get them ready for publication."

Batzer said preparing the handbook is a major effort, since the previous publication's content is insufficient."There is a significant amount of table reformation. We're nearly finished with eight chapters with three remaining," he said.These codes in the colored yarn are used to identify the hose manufacturer and are placed under the reinforcement so they can be identified in the event the cover is destroyed."These codes are basically for liability protection," Batzer said. "We found that some of these codes have been issued for 50 or 60 years. A lot of the companies on the old list are out of business or have merged with other companies. Our job is to identify who on the list is active and take out the color codes that are obsolete."

"Instead of trying to fight the fire yourself, we really encourage people just to stay away from the building," said spokeswoman Carol Henke."Once a building is on fire, a garden hose is going to do virtually nothing."The resident who noticed the fire tried to call 911 from inside the house but the line was not working properly."We don't know why the phone wasn't working," Henke said."Unless you're completely trapped and absolutely cannot get out of the building, we never want people to call from inside the building. That's really important."She said fires double in size every 30 seconds, and by the time a resident calls 911, answers all the questions and conveys all the information, it may be too late to leave.Instead, she said, use a cellphone or call from a neighbour's home.The fire department said the home will need extensive repairs to be habitable again.