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Fire Extinguishers - Halon (BCF) Alternatives

Posted: Mon Feb 01, 2010 8:05 pm
by Rural53
I've never been a fan of dry powder fire extinguishers. I've seen a few not work due to powder compaction, a real issue in 4wds. I just got emailed some photos from the US of a buggy belonging to a guy I know burnt out with eight dry powder extinguishers sitting in front of it. Basically rolled into a hole and and spilled auto trans fluid onto the manifold. They had it out at least twice but it kept igniting.
I'm old enough to have seen halon fire extinguishers used and they were great. Dupont and 3M are producing non ozone depleting alternatives to halon and these are available in the US in fire extinguishers. Is anyone in NZ selling fire extinguishers with one of these halon alternatives?

Re: Fire Extinguishers - Halon (BCF) Alternatives

Posted: Mon Feb 01, 2010 8:20 pm
by hosehustler
i'm an old skool professional fireman....... long time enough in the service to see halons being in wide use and go because of the flourine ozone depletion side.
The reality is there is no alternative, we now carry DP instead which is crap compared to th Bromochlorodiflouromethane we had, although it's still in use in onboard aircraft extinguishing systems it's just another example of PC gone mad, at some point in time people will pay with their lives :shock:
I still have a 5kg one in my vehicle 8)
Tim

Re: Fire Extinguishers - Halon (BCF) Alternatives

Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2010 6:28 pm
by aroma
bcf they the old yellow ones??
got a couple in the garage mite just hide one in the jeep somewhere
is it still legal to have or use them??
sorry for thread hi jack