Best Fire Extinguisher and placement

[safari57]

What concerns me is I don't want to replicate the same situation of a friend we have in the car club who was doing a no-no and working on installing a new fuel gauge in the gas tank of his wife's '65 T-Bird in their attached garage. He knocked over a trouble light and poof - then he got the fire out and then something caused it to re-ignite and he was out of extinguisher.

They lost the car and his '56 GMC pickup sitting beside it, a big chunk of his house, his eyebrows, and almost lost the entire house had the fire department not been as prompt as they were.

So I want to make sure whatever I install is going to keep things cooled down long enough for anyone inside to get out and away and then, hopefully, to keep the fire out. If not at least no loss of life which is really the critical issue.

I've learned a lot about fire extinguishers the last day or so, many thanks.

Barry

[thecatsandi]

First your need a shatter proof (rough service) lamp in the trouble light. Good ventilation to prevent fume build up.
I prefer a florescent lamp they come encased in plastic.

[safari57]

Hi Michelle

Yes, you are right there. Unfortunately Rick didn't and he should have known better given his job at the time and the training he'd had at work over the years. Personally I do not work on gas related issues in my shop. It's easy enough to do that outside where the risk is less of losing anything. I also use fluorescent trouble lites (they call them trouble lites for a reason ) generally anyways. I prefer the light. I added two very large fire extinguishers to my shop right after Rick's garage fire. But I've done less than I should have with the trailer. Oops.

Take care,
Barry

[Pop Rivet]

I advise those of you who have no experiance with intense fires to hook up your trailer and go to the nearest fire station and have them go over what can happen and the best way to handle the fire. You need a plan and you need to rehearse the plan ( the old fire drill in school ring a bell?) so there is no question as to what your going to do.

To give you an example: Lets say your are all settled down for a cool nights sleep and you have an electric space heater operating - the heater, for whatever reason, starts a fire. By the time you are aroused and understand whats happening that fire may be well established and may have consummed most the O2 inside the trail. When you open a door or window to exit, The Fire will flare - could be close to an explosion. You need to prepare for that by wrapping up in a blanket or something prior to introducing the O2. Remember, there is no time to come up with a plan while the fire is blazing. Do you know how to operate your emergency exit? Have you tried it? Has everyone in the family tried it? Lets hope you never need to activate your precautions but please - be prepared.

[Fyrzowt]

You're right, you do need a plan.
More than that, you also need a smoke detector. If you don't wake up no plan will help you.
The first step in your plan is to get out.
Don't worry about the fire flaring when you open a window or door, just get out. If fire conditions are such that the window makes that much difference, then your smoke detector didn't work and it's too late anyway.
Only after you are out should you make the decision to fight the fire or not. Trailers burn extremely fast! If you have mounted the extinguisher near the exit, then you can use it if the fire is small. Understand that handheld type extinguishers are made for small fires, they aren't effective on larger ones.
Make sure you know where your exits are. Consider doors and all windows. Preplan how you will react if a fire starts in various locations.
We are all attached to our trailers, but none of them are worth getting hurt over, or worse.
Get out first.
Dave