Fire Extinguishers

[Average_gatsby45]

i've been running around the back country, and something made me start to think about having a FEX in my truck. i saw a small grass fire, and realized that the nearest fire house is over an hour away.

anyone else carry one? what do you have and how is it mounted.

i was looking at the brackateer mount, and a kidde car FEX --

 

[G-Ride990]

I had one bolted through the floor mats in my 2016, haven't gotten around to doing it again in my 2022

 

[Bigskyroadglide]

I carry one in my 2024 classic warlock. It's mounted in the bed just inside the tailgate. Is a smaller kitchen type unit.

I also carry one on.my motorcycle, I've used it several times and had to recharge it. As it's size emptied quickly

I don't have any photos
Sorry

 

[Average_gatsby45]

yeah im gonna do something similar
in my chewbaru i have a molle panel i can dog it down to

yeah, it really hit me im in the middle of nowhere and so far away from help

 

[Curmudgeon]

We have 2 in our home but none in our vehicles. I often think about carrying one but haven't done anything about it. I'm curious to see how many folks do, and where/how they are mounted.

 

[crash68]

I keep a fire extinguisher under the back seat behind the driver. It sits on top a storage bag with the head/valve assembly right where it can be grabbed without lifting the seat up.
Most vehicle fires have to be caught in the very beginning stage or even the large extinguishers for vehicles just don't have enough.
The extinguishers in my work vehicles have been used a few times when "hot work" decided to spread.

 

[zrock]

I have one that is just tucked under the backseat, one side of the seats is always in the up position since i store my riding hear in the truck all the time so i do not have to keep packing it.

 

[Average_gatsby45]

i dig that -- i'm an outside operator in a refinery

 

[RamDiver]

i've been running around the back country, and something made me start to think about having a FEX in my truck. i saw a small grass fire, and realized that the nearest fire house is over an hour away.

anyone else carry one? what do you have and how is it mounted.

i was looking at the brackateer mount, and a kidde car FEX --

That's a great idea, thanks for posting.

I keep a couple of 7# FEXs in the house because I heat with wood. I'm going to start storing the basement FEX in my truck during the summer months (or non-heating months) and be ready.

I live in a rural area where fire bans are often in effect during the summer & fall months, and they're always useful for small automotive fires.

As much as I like the mounting idea, I also don't want to be tripping over the 7# FEXs either.
I'm sure it will fit in the Rubbermaid toolbox in the trunk.

.

 

[Jeepwalker]

I have one in most of my SUVs ....except the Ram. Two large-ish ones in the house. Thanks for the reminder... I need to get serious and get one in there.

Back in the 80's I had a car engine catch on fire. I got out and immediately started digging with my hands like an animal ....literally tossing whatever dust and rocks & dirt i could gather ....to keep the flames low while my brother ran up to the house and got the fire extinguisher (which was maybe 200 yards away). He ran quick and by the time he got back I had kept it down but it wasn't going away. It had spread to the top of the engine pretty good. One touch with the fire extinguisher the fire went out in the blink of an eye ...like someone flipped a switch. That's how effective it was. Fortunately other than some hoses and wires, that's about all that got damaged (70's cars didn't have a lot of items to burn off like they do today).

Note: a couple weeks ago I replaced an unused older fire extinguisher out of a car which indicated 'low pressure'. The needle was all the way down. It was a plenty old extinguisher, so I wasn't surprised on the pressure. Could be the gauge was shot too. For grins I pulled the trigger. Yeah, to my surprise, there was still quite a bit of reserve pressure there I'm sure it would have put out a small fire. So... if all you had was a low-pressure extinguisher, it might still have some reserve left.

 

[Jeepwalker]

Several yrs ago wife and I decided to meet and have a work lunch together. We come out of the restaurant, a car in the lot had quite a bit of smoke coming from under the hood.

I called 911 to alert them and get them to send a fire truck. I once lived near that area and I know the fire station isn't very far away. Wow.....I learned they suddenly put you in a 'suspect' bucket right away! The lady wanted to know EVERYTHING about me (nothing about the car, location, or fire). No sense of urgency ...kept coming back to who I was, where I lived, what I was doing there ..and so on. It was a national chain restaurant...what does she think I was doing there!! She wasted a lot of valuable time. This went on a while while the fire was getting worse, probably to the point where it was going to get out of control, I finally had to say, "Look, send the fire truck or not... I'm going to hang up now." And I got the heck out of there.

What kind of world do we live in where you're a suspect for trying to do the right thing?! I would not be eager to call 911 in a similar situation in the future.

.

 

[Burla]

Know what class you are trying to put out, I think most car are class b but I havent looked, for flammable glass. Class a for dry weeds my guess, again have not looked for a long time. It is on my short list just to aide me or other drivers, I don't think I'd bother with weed fire.

Or avoid by getting a.b.c units I think they will cost more.

 

[aszumilo]

Here's a handy chart

 

[Green_Manalishi]

One in every vehicle. Truck has it in the RamBox. It fits nicely, no bracket needed.

 

[Daniel Ortiz]

I used to work the corner stations at the Texas World Speedway in College Station, TX for a side gig while I was putting myself through college at Texas A&M. Some of the old hands there recommended everyone carry a fire extinguisher in their car, because you only had to come upon a bad wreck once and see people going up in flames while being helpless to do anything about it for it to stick in your mind forever.

I took the advice to heed and bought a small portable one. I was driving a '98 Jeep Wrangler at the time. For the Ram, I bought a little bigger one. Like @crash68 above, it stays under the back seat behind the driver seat, in one of those little buckets under there:



As you can see, it lives with all my essentials: Club, umbrella, and pillow.

It's a nice 2.5 lb rechargeable unit by Buckeye Fire Equipment, and made in the USA. Their company is headquartered in Charlotte, NC. Every few months I pull it out and shake it about to get all the settled powder to re-distribute and break up. Thankfully I've never had to use it, but it HAS stood guard next to a camp fire once during a dry spell, just in case.

 

[ledmircy]

I don’t carry a FEX myself yet, but I’ve been thinking about it too.

Do you guys find them really useful for bigger fires?

 

[RamDiver]

I don’t carry a FEX myself yet, but I’ve been thinking about it too.

Do you guys find them really useful for bigger fires?

Fire extinguishers are to prevent small fires from becoming larger and causing more damage.

They aren't too much use for larger fires besides extinguishing an escaped flaming human or helping with an exit strategy.

Avoid tackling a larger fire unless you're very confident or one of the above applies.

.

 

[5150Eddie]

I keep a 5lb one in both of my trucks plus one is mounted in my box trailer. I have FEX inspections at my place of biz once a year and those are always included so they have up to date tags on them. Luckily never had to use any of them..

 

[Florida Steve]

I have always carried an extinguisher in my trucks, especially since they have turbos. My recommendation is a Halon unit since it leaves no residue. ABC class FEX have a dry powder that is very abrasive and is very difficult to clean up. Halon, if you can find it it extremely effective as it chemically interferes with combustion rather than cooling (think water) or eliminating oxygen ( CO2 and dry powder). Downside is they are hard to find, expensive and Halon is a known greenhouse gas. But they are super effective and have been used in computer mainframe rooms for fire suppression for years. Being a former first responder I was fortunate to lay my hands on two, both which reside in the rear floor of my 2024 3500.

 

[Havoc]

I keep my FEX behind the driver's seat in one of those seatback bags that Duluth Trading sells. I avoid Kidde's due to some of them having plastic handles. If your FEX gets exposure to sunlight, the plastic handles may suffer. First Alerts seem to typically have metal handles/valves and seem more robust to me. Having said that, I carry an Amerex in my Ram. I want to see a silver, bare-metal handle.