How do you handle pressure?

I don't know why but I always find I become incredibly logical and remain calm when things go badly wrong.

I don't understand it, I've not had any training, but in a crisis I seem to be the one to keep the clear head and figure a way out.

Like this afternoon I pulled out the lawn mower someone just gave us to mow the lawn.  Our old one died and apparently this one was found at the tip with the only thing wrong with it being a broken starter chord.

Somehow I now wonder if that's entirely true...

I filled it up and pulled the starter chord. The whole thing engulfed itself in flame, seems a fuel leak or some overflow had spilt fuel down under the engine which ignited when I started the engine.  It was a pretty decent little fire I had there on the driveway - well it looked pretty bad, but instead of running away, or grabbing a hose or calling 000, I stopped for a second, assessed the situation and realised that it was mainly just fuel fumes burning on the body of the mower.  I filled a bucket in the laundry (not too much water knowing I didn't want to soak the engine if I ever wanted the thing to start again) and from a fair way back I threw the water horizontal onto the mower so it dispersed the fumes extinguishing the fire.  Water isn't good for extinguishing fuel fires as fuel sits on top of water and contains oxygen which at fuel burn temps can fuel the fire if the water evaporates.  But I didn't have a foam extinguisher and I knew hosing it could have made it worse.

In hindsight though I look back and wonder how I came to the conclusion to use the quick horizontal sweep of a little bit of water (to essentially blow the fire out) so quickly.  I've seen other people under pressure in similar situations and wrong choices are made... so what happens with you?

PostScript: oh yeah - after letting it sit for 10 minutes, and with another little bucket of water on hand just in case, I started the mower, it didn't burn and I mowed the lawn :-)