[Mo]

Hey guys, really sobering subject started here. Maybe we can save someone a disaster.

OK...little story....

A club member put a battery and mast stay in the trunk of his car. The stay arc'd across both battery terminals and caught the trunk of his Lexus on fire.

I ran for my boat and shouted to a firefighter / friend to grab a fire ext from his boat as he was close. I knew the 10 pounders were on my boat but had to run a few hundred feet to get one.

My friend John, Capt Firefighter, took his 5 pounder off his boat and ran up to the car. It wouldn't work. When I got back with the 10 pounder dry chem she was showing flame....opened up and dumped the whole thing into the flame.... fire out.

The 5 pounder?? --- looked alright but he couldn't squeeze to activate it. It showed "full" in the "green" but was seized. Even though our extinguishers may read full, prolonged exposure to our marine environments may cause the activation mechanism to seize. His had the plastic type squeeze handle (typically bought at marine outlets)....we both fooled around with it after the incident and finally got it to discharge... without any control of direction.

The guy whose car we saved was very appreciative. He immediately asked for my extinguisher and insisted on putting a new one on the boat right away. I told him I bought it at COSTCO and off he went. When he came back he had 3 new 10 pounders. 2 for me and 1 for John. Initially, I had 3 on the boat and that's how I ended up with the 4th.

Fire! - Ensure your extinguisher will work
- Ensure it is big enough to put out a decent size fire. Personally I think all of us should have at least 1 ten pounder aboard.