Fiery Crash on I-49: Car Fire Extinguisher (Update on victims)

If your engine has a growing lit flame happening, you are going to need more volume than a portable extinguisher can give you.

There is a reason why they foam for stuff like that.

If the volume will work, any ABC rated one will probably get it done.

Would there be much risk that +120° summertime heating of the car would cause an extinguisher to explode?

Just get the highest rated ABC extinguisher you are willing to spend, with the largest volume.

I looked into it. Apparently the official recommendation for engine fires is minimum 5 pounds located on a mount under the driver’s seat. Emphasizing those seconds are all you have before it’s something only a truck can fight.

In your case, I’d imagine it’s better to have a larger volume so you can spread it out.

Also argue that in that case a chemical would be better, as you would be dispersing a flame retardant coating rather than a puff of CO2 that limits oxygen for a time but allows the material to be relit.

They can take it

Keep in mind the whole thing doesn’t have to be pressurized. Worst case scenario, the relief valve on the propellant let’s off some steam lessening the charge.

But they won’t go pop.

Myth busters actually had an episode on thT once.

I was coming back from FL a few years ago and an 18 wheeler driver had died in a similar way. He was dead, seated in the cab, and everyone could see as they went by. I think he’d been burned to death.

It was pretty surreal. The entire cab was charred.

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Did the trucker make it?

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He got helicoptered off. We don’t know yet. But his diesel tank blew, and the smoke was ungodly.

My wife, a nurse, crawled under the wreckage to help him while my son’s and i tried to keep the fire off. There were about eight of us (a lot of people stopped). But we couldn’t keep the grass fire off the trailer. It was windy, and the flames drove us back once the trailer caught.

No way I let my wife and children get anywhere close to something like that. Good on you though for trying to help.


ETA: this happened in la?

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ETA: this happened in la?

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I-49 near Mansfield.

That’s it. The car was burning furiously. Whoever was in it had no chance.

The driver in the flipped truck was alive but pinned. But then the fire hit. It was pretty bad.

You could at least yell that it’s there to a good Samaritan .

Although....I hate to be potentially be the voice of hindsight: were all of the trucks fire extinguishers inaccessible? They are typically inside compartments marked on the outside.