Interesting story Robmac ... did you get the impression that the fan might have combusted had the firemen not intervened? What exactly did they do?
I don't think you need to be mid-Pacific to worry about a fire putting you up the creek very quickly, but it certainly doesn't improve your chances!
I think the lesson of past aircraft fires is that you have to be aggressive in diagnosing and supressing the source.
Even very recently, cabin crew don't always seem to understand that. The link
http://www.fire.tc.faa.gov/pdf/syste...sibleAreas.pdf shows a few incidents that has let the NTSB to recommend a more active approach.
I think the one with 23 fatilities, one flight attendent remarked afterwards that he/she 'didn't want to damage the airplane' by hacking panels to get at the source of fire.
Screw the panels, I say... if CC sees smoke, I'm hoping one's grabbing an extinguisher, the other an axe, and they start swinging!