Fire

Jeremy556

Jeremy556

New member
I had a conversation with my fire marshal buddy and he told me to throw away my tiny dry-chem extinguisher. He said, just forget about it, or buy a private aviation, real HALON extinguisher, and even that probably won't do much by the time you employ it. Also, just spray it through the grill and don't open the hood.

Looking around online tonight, I found a product called Blazecut, which is a plastic tube filled with some fire retardant under pressure. When the plastic melts, it releases the fire retardant and hopefully all is well.

Now, I keep my winch power disconnected and only wire it up when needed (very rarely), all of my accessories are protected by a circuit breaker on the battery and a fuse for each circuit, but I am still somewhat paranoid about fire.

Hopefully we have some subject matter experts on the forum that can give some incite...
 
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Way back in time I saw my father put out a fire in some lady's car with a fire extinguisher. Might have been the gas station's. :flame:

So I have one of those small extinguishers, its in that tray between the second row and the sliding tray, and yes I have wondered how long it would take me to get it out. But I can't think of another place for it. As is I have to wrap it in a microfiber cloth so it doesn't rock back and forth.

Pointless?

The truth hurts?
 
in my third gen, I mounted one of the small fire extinguishers on the floor board in front of the passenger seat. Easy to get to.
 
I used a little dry chem extinguisher once. It worked perfectly and saved my truck. An electrical issue caused a main wiring loom to catch fire under the hood and I dumped the extinguisher on it. It was not a 4runner BTW.
 
Halon and other clean agents are nice, but very expensive. Most aren't willing to pay the extra cost for it compared to dry chem extinguishers. But if you have $20,000 in your car, then a $300 extinguisher doesn't look so bad.

Whatever you decide to go with, they do have vehicle brackets for most extinguishers so that they are solidly mounted and not just rolling around or become projectiles during a crash. Just make sure you can get to it quickly.
 
Jeremy556 said:
I had a conversation with my fire marshal buddy and he told me to throw away my tiny dry-chem extinguisher. He said, just forget about it, or buy a private aviation, real HALON extinguisher, and even that probably won't do much by the time you employ it. Also, just spray it through the grill and don't open the hood.

Looking around online tonight, I found a product called Blazecut, which is a plastic tube filled with some fire retardant under pressure. When the plastic melts, it releases the fire retardant and hopefully all is well.

Now, I keep my winch power disconnected and only wire it up when needed (very rarely), all of my accessories are protected by a circuit breaker on the battery and a fuse for each circuit, but I am still somewhat paranoid about fire.

Hopefully we have some subject matter experts on the forum that can give some incite...
Click to expand...
unless the fire is right on the front of the engine, I don't see how that will do any good. what with everything it would have to get through.

I do understand the reason for not opening the hood. but its not like its a sealed environment, it will still be getting oxygen. at least with the hood open you could spray directly on the flames and source.
 
[MENTION=78273]Jeremy556[/MENTION]'s first post makes sense. Just a few weeks ago I was driving on the highway here and saw some black smoke about a mile up ahead. It was just a few wisps. By the time I got there less than a minute later I could see it was a car fire. The fire was in the engine compartment and it was ROARING by then; tires on fire, paint on the hood and fenders gone, glass cracked and huge flames coming out from under the hood everywhere. Thankfully no one was in the car and a cop was pulling up. When I drove by with my windows up I could feel the intense heat from it. Unless you caught that fire immediately, no fire extinguisher was going to put it out.
 
Absolutely do not open the hood. Spray from below up into the engine bay as well as through the grille. I've experienced first hand how quickly an engine fire grows, opening the hood allows the fire to draw more air in from below as more heat escapes from above. There's a reason we carry dry chem in every race car I have dealt with. They work, and they're worth it.
 
In my opinion, which I know means nothing....
A fire extinguisher in a vehicle should be used to extinguish flames on people and not on a vehicle.
Vehicle fires are extremely dangerous and volatile, I'm sure more than one person has caught themselves on fire in the process of attempting to put a fire out. I've seen crazier things happen..
 
Stgo2019 said:
....
A fire extinguisher in a vehicle should be used to extinguish flames on people and not on a vehicle.
.
Click to expand...

No. A fire extinguisher is for all small fires. Why would you let a small and manageable fire grow into something bigger and even more dangerous just because it's not a person?
Attack the fire, any fire, if your common sense and judgement of the situation says its safe to do so. If you're not sure or don't have the confidence, then back off.
 
KidVermicious said:


Wow.
Click to expand...

Cool. I wonder how it would have worked if they had kept the glass / plastic dooR opened up.

A truck engine has an open air bottom end and easy ventilation through the grill. There will be a lot of air moment in a real engine fire. It would be very different than a closed box.
 
Something to remember is that while the fire gets air from the bottom, it has a harder time venting the inert (low, to no unbonded oxygen) with the hood closed. Thus the fire will smoulder more than freely burn because it's effectively suffocating itself (not enough to burn out, but enough to prevent it to go fireball until it spreads or gets hot enough to cause more problems), opening the hood allows it to breathe better and get that smoke out of the engine bay. The idea is used by firefighters to pull smoke and heat out of a structure for by "venting" near the roof. Though conversely, when done wrong it basically creates an inferno like you'd get when you open a hood if the engine bay is on fire.
 
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