On May 14, 2008, at 11:05 AM, Scott Daniel - Shazam wrote:

> Everyone has a GOOD fire extinguisher, of the right type - for oil and
> electrical fire s- whatever the rating is..........., there are
> several
> types ............
> Mounted, in a bracket ( like not buried in junk under the back seat )
> Where you can get at it NOW, right ?
>
> And for an engine fire, you shoot into the engine air vents.

Great!
I was wondering how to do that in my Westy which has all my stuff
above the engine when on trips.  Maybe we should all mount
extinguishers on the sides of our vanagons next to the vents-could
look kinda trick & you could simply just pull the pin & handle w/o
having to get the extinguisher out???? grin

> You have about one minute, 2 max, to take rapid action when it
> happens.
>
> I have gotten perhaps 4 engine car fires out, all within seconds of
> them
> starting.
>
> My professional and standard rule for 'old VW's' - especially old
> air-cooleds- is TWO fire extinguishers on board.
>
> They are required on ALL powered boats and aircraft, after all.
> Must be a
> reason for that.
> I even carry my own fire extinguishers on test drives of customer's
> cars
> And I've had fire on a test drive too.

I  had to put out a fire in my 63 DC the day I got it by throwing
dirt from the side of the road on the engine, as the fire
extinguisher was dead from using it in an earlier fire that same day!!!!

Don't recommend this for the average idiot, only the really big ones.

Mr. BZ