Hawaii Man Fights Fire With Soup, Wins

Miso’s versatile qualities make it great
for everything from soups to
butterscotch, but this fire extinguisher
thing is a new development.
On Saturday morning, an electrical short
in the laundry room of Joy Gardner’s
Hawaii Island home ignited a fire that
nearly engulfed the house, the Honolulu
Star-Advertiser reports.
Thankfully, the fire’s crackling sound
woke Reuben Prensky, Gardner’s son who
was visiting from Canada. Prensky ran
to the kitchen, grabbed whatever was
nearest to him — which just so happened
to be a pot of miso soup on the stove —
and dumped it on the fire. His quick
thinking slowed the fire enough so that
Prensky could grab a hose and douse it
completely.
“Everybody agrees, if that fire had gone
on for about 30 more seconds, it would
have burned the whole house down,”
Prensky’s mother said.
Firefighters noted that had the fire
lasted any longer, it had a good chance
of hitting the home’s A-frames and
spreading beyond control. It didn’t, but
the casualties included a “melted sink, a
blackened wall, and orange and white
cubes of vegetables on the floor.”
Japanese research found that eating
three or more bowls of miso every day
could reduce women’s risk of developing
chest cancer, but dumping it on a fire in
her laundry room just may have saved
Gardner’s life.