After my battery blew up and turned the fiberglass hood into confetti, it was pretty easy to open the hood....=\

I'm a FF and I don't even carry one. They're not worth carrying unless you've got a 10#'er(at least). No matter how big the fire extinguisher is, if you can't readily put it out w/o one, you're vehicle is probably fukt anyhow....

 

wow.........guess i'll just be praying for my truck not to catch fire and keep my eyes on the gauges.

 

that is the best thing you can do....

 

If it is a small fire and it isn't in the area of the grill, there is no reason to not open the hood and at least try. But it is not worth hurting yourself over. If you can't do it without burning yourself or if the fire is already really cooking, don't waste your time.

 

actually i think they are more then 10 haha

 

What about buying a bigger one and mounting it to the inside of the bed on the drivers side? Should be able to jump out and grab it. It has enough volume to take most jobs and is easy excessible. If a fire starts inside the cab you should see it before it gets too big anyways so fast access is not a huge problem. Good brakes are lol. If you get a engine fire then your not going to open the hood anyways and it should be somewhat smothered so you would just need to jump out and grab it and spray under your fenders. Not sure what else could really catch fire on the back lol

 

Don't be fooled into thinking a closed hood means the fire will stay small. There is plenty of oxygen from underneath and from the FAN blowing air into the engine. And once a fuel line is ruptured, its gonna go like hell.

 

I carry 2 in my bronco, a 3.5# up front and a 8# in the cargo area. Some of the places I wheel require that you carry one. In case your vehicle, or someone else's, catches fire, they don't want the entire property going up in smoke.

What's the possibility/likely hood of an extinguisher freezing? I know they're under a lot of pressure so I don't even know if it's possible under non-arctic conditions.

 

A class-A only water extinguisher will freeze at 32 degrees like anything else. But nobody carries those anyway. All the dry powder and CO2 extinguishers are not sensitive to temperatures you will ever expose them to. Freezing is not a problem.

 

another thing to think about is the dry chemical extinguisher, the powder can clump up when not moved or used often.......but to fix that take the extinguisher and tap it on the ground a few times and it wil break it up....