Making safe and response. Episode forty of the Gas Service Animated series.

When a leak is a hazard — gas in a building, a high reading, a Grade one — the work stops being a survey and becomes a rescue. There's an order to it, and life comes first. Get it in your bones before you ever need it.

Step one: get people out and keep them back. Don't gather everyone in the driveway to explain — move them well away, upwind, and keep others from walking in. An occupied structure with a gas reading is evacuated first and investigated second.

Step two, and this is the one that kills: eliminate ignition sources — and eliminating a source can itself be the spark. Do not flip a light switch, on or off. Don't touch a thermostat, a phone, an appliance, a garage-door opener, or start a vehicle. Don't ring the doorbell. Use only rated, intrinsically-safe lights. If the atmosphere is in range, the smallest arc is enough.

Step three, where it's safe to do so: ventilate, and monitor continuously. Open it up to drop the concentration, and keep the meter running — you're watching to stay below ten percent of the lower explosive limit. A reading that keeps climbing means the leak is active and winning; that changes the plan.

Step four: stop the gas at the nearest safe point. The appliance valve for an appliance leak. The valve at the meter for the building. The curb or service valve if the meter isn't safe to reach. Turn it off by hand — a quarter turn at the meter valve, perpendicular to the pipe is off — and leave it off until the system is proven tight again.

Step five: call for help early, not late. The emergency gas line for the utility response, and for an active hazard, a fire, or an evacuation, call nine-one-one and the fire department. This is not the moment to be a hero alone — the sooner the right people are rolling, the smaller the incident.

Step six: red-tag it. Any appliance or system you've made unsafe gets shut off, tagged out of service, and documented — what you found, what you did, and that it's not to be used until repaired. A red tag is a promise to the next person that this thing is not safe yet.

And re-entry — turning it back on — is the hardest discipline, because it's tempting to rush. Nobody goes back and nothing gets relit until three things are true: the atmosphere is verified clear on the meter, the leak is repaired and the system holds pressure, and every appliance is re-checked and relit correctly — including the five-minute draft check on a draft-hood appliance from the startup episode. Clear, tight, proven. Then, and only then.

Making safe in one breath. Evacuate and keep back. Kill every ignition source — including the switch in your hand. Ventilate and monitor below ten percent L-E-L. Shut off at the appliance, the meter, or the curb. Call early. Red-tag what's unsafe. And re-enter only when it's clear, tight, and proven. That's the season: find it, read it, grade it, trace it, and make it safe.