Fire Suppression

[TorqueHorse]

Recently on one of the FB groups someone posted images of their lovely M100 going up in smoke. From the post it sounded like everyone was ok, but the car didn't make it. It got me thinking that we talk a lot about what tires, oil, coolant, and brakes we are running, but sharing info about fire suppression choices, and the reality of what they can do, might help one more person stay safe and enjoying their Elan for years to come.

I have one of these in the glove box. https://elementfire.com/
Curious if anyone has had actual experience with them, and also what else are folks using for peace of mind?

[Tuga2112]

i have a good old fashioned 1l one in my celica with its braket bolted to the front underside of the drivers seat.

its safely out of the way. the seat moves freely with it in place. and its accessible while driving as long as you pull the seat back. in fact, my driving position allows me to acceess it while driving. but a shorter person wouldnt be able to reach it.

i inded to setup something similar in the Elan. but never got the balls to drill extra holes in the fibreglass. i feel the floor will need re-enforcing in order to bolt that

[dapinky]

I carry a 1L powder unit behind the passenger seat in both of mine.

Having seen many cars go up in flames (or at least, the aftermath of it!), I am under no illusion that any hand-held device will do very much at all in terms of salvage of the vehicle, and the main reason for having it is to give sufficient chance to get the car to a halt, and get occupant(s) out alive.

A 1L bottle will give about 16 seconds of "good" suppressant - which isn't really enough to extinguish a developed fuel fire, and still keep it extinguished when residual heat will be trying to re-ignite it. Burning fibreglass is extremely hot, and hard to fully extinguish without copious amounts of water to cool it quickly - powder just doesn't cut it.

The plan is that I can reach the extinguisher whilst still driving, alert the passenger (if there is one), get to a safe stop, get passenger out whilst still in a position to drive forward (flames will be behind me if the fire is at the rear, if in the engine, then I stop and alight at the same time. Extinguisher will only be deployed to allow people to get out, then attempt further suppression if I think it's worth it - otherwise, it won't get used!

A competition car requires a much more complicated system of plumbing and hand-held - and even then, rarely do a complete job on their own.

(That said, the element fire sticks are really good, take up little space, and I would rather have one accessible than in the glove box - but even that is better than nowt)

[Steve A]

Would a 1L powder unit be enough to save the rear lights

[BarryDalHerbert]

Prior to retirement I was a fire occifer. In our frequent training sessions it was always impressed upon us that if a fire was larger than a blazing office waste paper bin full of paper, the best thing that we could do was to get everybody out because in no time flat the whole building could be alight. And the videos that we were shown reinforced that message.

In one of those meetings I asked what type of fire extinguisher I should install in my Lotus Elan. One of the firemen said that always carrying the extra weight of an extinguisher in a Lotus did not match it’s value if it was ever needed. I only asked the question at the end of the session out of personal interest, but far more discussion than I ever expected then followed.

Although the firey (they abbreviate everything here!) who originally answered my question knew what a Lotus was and that it was constructed of composite materials, he and I we were the only two in the room who did. So that promoted more questions, all vehicles were roped in to the discussion and very quickly divided the people with no fire fighting experience and the professionals. Despite our training, many of my co-workers thought that it was a good idea to have a fire extinguisher in a car (mostly those who had actually bought one I suspect), but the the people who really knew said that the best thing to do was to get everybody out of the car and then get far away from it.

I had not heard of the Element fire extinguisher, so I investigated before I wrote this post. They are an interesting fire fighting development, with at least two distinct advantages. They would certainly be lighter than other extinguisher designs. And if I understand correctly, they do not have a life, after which other extinguishers are as useless as the powder extinguisher I carried all over Australia for years until I actually needed it, when it fizzed and farted, but did nothing to put out the fire in my VW Microbus’ engine compartment. The Vee-Dub was a total write-off.


I have not written this to wind anybody up. I am purely and simply passing on my own experiences. Please don’t turn this into an (anti) social media style bun fight!


Occifer. Yeah I know. Blame Ronnie Barker! I loved the way that he used to play with worms.

BdH
NSW Australia
Fri 21-Jul-23 11:07

[Saltire]

Thanks, occifer, that’s a very helpful and informative commentary. I’ve habitually carried a powder extinguisher because, when I learnt to drive back in the early 70s, it was considered the “right” thing to do. In the Elan, I have it mounted to the top of the near side (RHD) speaker box, behind the passenger seat. I rarely carry a passenger, so it’s easily accessible.

I’ve only ever needed to use a car extinguisher once, when I noticed wisps of smoke curling up through the bonnet vents of the TVR I had at the time. Discharging the extinguisher through the same vents dealt with the problem, and it subsequently turned out that the (official TVR) service agent had forgotten to replace the oil filler cap when they changed the oil. Fortunately, no harm was done, although given that that was a composite-bodied car too, I guess I was fortunate.

Steve Cropley of Autocar, who lives near me and used to own an M100, at one time had a turbo Citroen 2CV, which went up in smoke, but that fire took hold so quickly that all he could do was leave the vehicle.

IMG_1901.jpeg

I’ve looked at the Element style of extinguishers, because - like you - I like the idea that it lasts indefinitely, but I’ve never found anyone who’s used one in anger.

On balance, these days, if the Elan caught fire, I think I’d get out and watch it burn. I’d get a pretty decent replacement for the agreed value on the insurance.

[dapinky]

On balance, these days, if the Elan caught fire, I think I’d get out and watch it burn. I’d get a pretty decent replacement for the agreed value on the insurance.

That's my way of thinking - but at the same time, as I get to keep the salvage, if I can save some of it, It's worth it!

[dapinky]

My biggest concern with the Safety Stick is that it may or may not be intuitive to use in an emergency - most people already understand that a conventional extinguisher needs to have the pin pulled out, aim it at the fire and pull the trigger...... the stick requires a different initiation sequence, and I'm not sure that by the time I've got my glasses on, read the instructions and started it up, it would be great for me!!!

Okay, there may be an element of facetiousness in the answer, but at £70 a pop, I don't feel that buying a couple to practice with is worthwhile....... until my current extinguishers are out of date anyway.

I like the 'instantaneous' powder units, whilst the videos of the Stick seem to take a short while to get going..... i'm sure that they may be the way forward, but not for me, for now,

[BarryDalHerbert]

Ten or more years ago when I was last in the UK and being driven around by my brother, we saw two TVRs together coming the other way. Almost never seeing them over here I said something like "Wow, TWO TVRs!" to which my brother said, "Yeah, and neither of them was on fire", so maybe you were indeed fortunate Saltire!

My 1976 VW Microbus was always going to burn it seems because the fuel tank is above the engine with a single rubber pipe going to the fuel pump. Time alone will deal with the rubber pipe, when gravity then takes over and a hot flat four does the rest. Cheap-skating on a move back from a temporary six month contract in Melbourne, I had just driven 680-ish kilometres from Melbourne to Canberra on my own on what seemed like the hottest day of the year with the majority of our worldly possessions in the car, and barely enough room for me. I parked in my Canberra driveway, got out of the car to be greeted by the smell of burning and smoke coming out of the VW's "ears" above the rear wheels. I raced down the side of the house to get my garden hose only to discover that somebody had nicked the required adaptor from my street-facing tap. Now shouting for my neighbours to help, my hose would not reach from the nearest neighbour's house to the vehicle, but luckily his did. We poured water in one of the ears. Another neighbour joined in with his hose down the other ear, but really we were just waiting for all of the fuel pouring on the very hot air-cooled engine to run out. I stupidly opened the engine compartment lid badly burning my hand in the process, and instantly watched the fire become an inferno. Both rear tyres went bang scaring the bejesus out of everybody, and ultimately the rear alloy wheels melted. The fire brigade arrived in time to see the fire run out of petrol, but they then spent quite a lot of time trying to determine if I had started the fire. Arson my arse said I showing them the contents of the car and pointing out that I had far better places to have started a fire on the Hume Highway where it really would have burned to a shell. To my amazement, although very smokey smelling, nothing inside was damaged. Everything in the engine compartment looked like a Salvador Dalí melted clock.

The car was under-insured because without me having noticed they has started to go up in value. In 1988 I got about $7,000 from the insurance company - and now they are a completely mad $30,000 - $40,000! When we moved from Perth to Canberra we drove the 3,750 kms because it was a chance to see everything and not have to drive back if it was horrible in the middle of nowhere and a very long way from anywhere. The longest straight stretch of road in the world, the only bend being the curvature of The Earth. It wasn't at all horrible and there was so much that we didn't see that 18 months later I drove back to Perth to "visit" our now rented house, and claim all costs as an income tax write-off (nice!). This time, we drove there in straight lines between the things that I wanted to see, and back all the way around the coastline. Six weeks, camping, 12,000-odd kms with her refusing to drive a single one of the kilometres on the grounds that she never wanted to go in the first place. Loads of fun for me and the two kids though. I used to love that Type 2 VW, but I would give them a miss now if only because the crumple zone in the front of those is your legs!

BdH
NSW Australia
Fri 21-Jul-23 21:56

[BarryDalHerbert]

Sorry. I rambled a bit off-topic there!

BdH
NSW Australia
Fri 21-Jul-23 21:57

[Giniw]

The sticks last for a long time, but also need a lot of time to hopefully extinguish the fire. The adds say those are nice because they last for a while, but the issue is that they are not very efficient. There is a normalized value indicating the extinguishing efficiency and it's indeed quite low compared to a regular fire extinguisher (I can't remember what it's called though, but I guess it will be easy enough to find it again).

Powder A+B+C are very efficient, but as far as I know they also are very corrosive. They do extinguish the fire, but they also ruin everything. So I once was told that if one is well insured against fires, it's was actually probably better to let it burn ... (as long as it's not dangerous)

There are also powder B+C extinguished, harder to find but still available in small units, and apparently they are wayyyy less corrosive than the A+B+C. The A class is intended to be used against wood, fabric, paper, plastics, cardboards. B is against oil, petrol, grease, paint, and C is against gas (butane, propane, and so on).

So I guess the B+C is good enough, since there is not so much wood, fabric or paper and cardboard in our cars. Plastics is a concern though. But if it's ruined with a B+C anyway, I gather it's not really interesting anyway (unless you _have_ to extinguish the fire at all costs to avoid anything worse)

[HJ2]

I always carry an old Halon extinguisher behind the passenger seat. Not for me, but to save someone else if nessecary.
The extinguisher is checked annually. It’s a shame halon is not sold anymore, just like R12