Re: Fire extinguishers

[rbrogren@xxxx]

Dave wrote:

> "You are probably about to find that cleaning up the fire extinguisher 
> 

Amen!

I have had three experiences with fire extinguishers and all were messy. 
The last was when some vandals broke into my hangar and discharged an 
extinguisher into the interior of my airplane and another into the gas tanks 
of another airplane. The powder is extremely fine and I had to have all 
instruments taken apart and cleaned. Cleaning up the interior and 
particularly under the instrument panel was also a long job and in total the 
cost was over $800. In the other plane the tanks had to be removed, cleaned 
and flushed. That bill came to $1400.
Both of my other experiences were on the road and both of them were engine 
fires in cars that had pulled of the road with smoke and flames coming out. 
The fires were snuffed out quick enough, one of the cars could be driven 
away, the other was left for a tow truck.

My recommendation is: Don't buy the 20 buck fire extinguishers of the 
hardware store variety but get a Halon extinguisher! A regular extinguisher 
is murder on electrical and electronic components! A regular extinguisher is 
certainly better than none, but be prepared for a tedious and expensive clean 
up job.
Halon is on the "endangered species" list but they are still available and 
legal.

If you are not familiar with the use and versions of portable fire 
extinguishers the following link will take you to a good article, written by 
a pro and contains a number of tips that everybody should know.

http://www.4x4road.com/tipsvf.html

Roger 




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