Fire extinguishers

[kgbsquirrel]

First you have to ask yourself, will a steam heated oven set bacon on fire?  

He wasn't sticking it to the officers, he was sticking it to the enlisted galley guys. Who happend to be my friends as well. When you FIX the galley equipment cooks become your friends. Having cooks as friends on a ship has certain advantages. 

Oh I'm well aware of the advantages of staying in the good graces of the cooks.  (USS Iwo Jima LHD7, 2003-05) From the story you told (ward room, denial of bacon, etc.) I thought the guy was going after the officer's food, rather than specifically dicking around with the cookies.

As for a steam line starting a fire? Yes it can. Steam under pressure is much hotter than the vapor wafting up from your boiling stew pot. Be that as it may, the ignition source could have been something other than the live steam lines, and it would still be a bad idea to rapidly chill those steam lines. My ship had a pair of Babcock & Wilcox 600 psi boilers. If I'm remembering right, the main steam lines were running at around 500*F. But I'm curious now about the ship you were on, do you recall what sort of engineering plant and what not?

[280plus]

1200 PSI DDG. I'll admit we could light our cigarettes off the exposed main steam valves but by the time steam got to the galley or laundry it was knocked down to 150 PSI. Still hot as hell, enough to burn you good, but not hot enough to ignite anything. The stoves and ovens were electric. The steam kettles were steam. And probably the steam table but I can't ever recall working on that. You know a cook will love you forever if you come in and make his steam kettle work for him when he needs it most.