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I wanted to resurface a topic that we all know about, but add in the e85 twist. The reason I bring this up is my buddy ran into a situation where 500 miles after assembling his engine he sprung an e85 fuel leak in his engine bay. He had a Halon extinguisher and was able to put out the fire two or three times until he had emptied the extinguisher and the e85 continued to ignite. Needless to say the end result was not pretty.

I am now running e85 and this has become a major fear that even when prepared for the worst, it may not be enough. My buddy found out that halon deosnt work well on alcohol based fuels, in fact an AR-AFFF type is the foam based extinguisher that works best for e85 or alcohol fire. I did some reading on this this and found it to be incredibly corrosive. Now perhaps I am sharing old news but i happened across this company called Cold Fire that says they have a non corrosive foam that works better than AFFF without the negatives AFFF has. I went ahead and ordered one of these after reading FOAM vs Halon extinguishing tests and wondered if you guys have ever used/heard of this company or do you have something that you trust already?

After watching what had happened to my buddies FD on e85 with a fuel fire I thought this may be a good topic to resurface for all those thinking or just changing to e85. That extinguisher you have may not be good enough to save your baby.

Appreciate any thoughts on this discussion topic

 

Bill

 

Has any one used purple k? Just curious if you guys are still using halon with E85 fuels.

 

I pulled this from an ethanol FAQ PDF just for your reading if you guts are interested.

Fire-fighting: Fuel ethanol and E85 fires require specific equipment, materials, and training. Recent testing of fire-fighting agents sponsored by the Ethanol Emergency Response Coalition using the Underwriters Laboratories, Inc. (UL) 162 test methodology revealed that conventional gasoline fire-fighting methods and chemicals are not likely to be effective on high ethanol content fuel fires. Ethanol blended fuels with greater than 10% ethanol require the use of a Polar Solvent or Alcohol Resistant (AR) type of Foam commonly known as an AR-AFFF. Traditional AFFF foams have limited to no ability to extinguish fire emergencies when the ethanol content is above 10% by volume. AR type foams work on all alcohol variations of ethanol and gasoline blended fuels and would be the best use of fire response equipment. It should be mentioned that Dry Chemical fire extinguishing agents may also work on ethanol blended fuels, however, the dry chemical manufacturer must be consulted for appropriateness.

 

wow, something you never think about. Great information

 

Your buddy with the halon fire extinguisher probably would have had the same result if he were on gasoline as well. Halon puts out fires by displacing oxygen so that a fire cannot burn, but as soon as it dissipates, if the fuel is still in contact with something that is hot enough to ignite it, it'll light on fire again no problem when the oxygen comes back.

Your best bet is to use a Sodium Bicarbonate fire extinguisher which will smother a fire instead. It's basically throwing baking soda on a fire. It's non corrosive too so afterwards you can just wash it off with a garden hose and it'll be fine. The BC sodium bicarbonate ones are not the same as the corrosive ABC mono ammonium phosphate fire extinguishers.

That being said I have two fire extinguishers in my Miata track car, one is Halotron because that's the type that is required, and the other is Sodium Bicarb.

 

That is great feedback. I guess the idea of cooling the surface while snuffing out the fire is an added benefit.

Always good to have the guys that are constantly on the race track to give feedback like this!

 

Do you have a link to where you got the Extinguisher? Excellent bit of information!!!!

 

I purchased from coldfiredirect.com

Did more research and I see that IRL and Nascar uses this stuff. I even saw a youtube video where an indy car had a fuel spill in the pits and started on fire. I guess they used this stuff (in massive amounts mind you for that fire) and the guy literally drove back out into the race like 45 secs later.

I am not saying this is the end all be all, but if it is good for professional racing - and it is easy to charge at home - its good enough for me. I bought a 2L extinguisher for the RX and a few of the small cans for the house.

 

I've always bought Amerex fire extinguishers. They're probably the most common.

Part number for 2.5lbs Sodium Bicarb: B403T

Part number for 2.5lbs Purple K: B410T

These ones can be had for less than 40 bucks if you're on a budget, and actually have certifications from the UL Rating system for B and C fires, not just A and B fires. Since the Cold Fire stuff is water, it will conduct electricity unlike Sodium Bicarb and Purple K, which is why it's not rated for electrical fires.

And also if the above options only come with the single strap wall mount, the part number for the dual strap vehicle mount is 817s

If you go on Google shopper and punch in Amerex then the part number, tons of places that sell them will pop up including Amazon.