Attaching a fire extinguisher in a car (passenger compartment)

[jacob]

Having watched an RV burn down from a small engine to a total melted loss, we have a fire extinguisher as well as glass hammer/seat belt cutter in the car.

However, the fire extinguisher is in a bag in the trunk and the hammer is ziptied to the door handle which neither looks nor works great. There are no flat-flat surfaces or hard points anywhere.

We currently drive the standard ERE forum car (2009 Honda Fit ). The normal fire extinguisher solution is to bolt a contraption to the "rails" in front of the passenger seat. I'm not convinced that would work for this car.

Google has failed me. Safety equipment just doesn't seem to be much of a concern in car forums... or I'm using the wrong terms/google has put me in an algorithmic hole.

[theanimal]

What size is it?

For commercial drivers, the common practice is to mount it next to or directly behind the seat. Obviously you can't do next to you in a car but you could mount it on the floor under the driver's seat towards the rear. Another option is to see if it's possible to mount it to the back of the center console.

[Ego]

Back door cup holder?

[jacob]

What size is it?

For commercial drivers, the common practice is to mount it next to or directly behind the seat. ...

Too big to fit in a cup holder. ... Although googling "cup holder fire extinguisher" did result in some potentially useful leads. The one we have is <1/4" too big to fit.

A compact commuter car doesn't lend itself very well to mounting "tactical safety gear". Although, methinks putting the extinguisher in the codriver rear pocket might be the best solution. Insofar the car gets rammed hard enough to cause an issue, people would be too dead/injured to operate it anyway .. and it would be unlikely to "fly" out of the pocket.

[Campitor]

and it would be unlikely to "fly" out of the pocket.

That may not be true in a rear end collision. I friend of mine was driving, wearing seatbelts, when he was hit in the rear by another vehicle. He was ejected out of his seat via the rear window. In a minor collision (30 mph-ish/40kph-ish) to your car rear, that back pocket extinguisher might fly loose.

Is your extinguisher bigger than the following?

https://www.amazon.com/FIRE-GONE-FG-007 ... 8251&psc=1

and here's a smaller option: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09N9MKT46?pd ... 8049db1388

[AxelHeyst]

I'm thinking of a seat backpack like this idea:
https://www.amazon.com/Reserwa-Backseat ... B07SH7MCDF

Easy to sew up something simpler that suits your needs/form factor.

[Sclass]

Huh. I used to carry a fire extinguisher in my car. And one of those rescue knife hammer things.

I stopped. Perhaps I should rethink it.

I think I’ll just keep a recycled coffee container full of baking soda on board. And maybe a broken off Sparkplug on an old shoelace to break the glass. Maybe I’ll even tie them together so it’s kind of a combo tool.

[Gilberto de Piento]

If you install a roll cage there will be many locations to easily clamp a fire extinguisher.

More seriously, another way to look at it is that by the time you notice there is a fire a modern (lots of wiring, electronics, and plastic) car is probably not worth fixing, especially if it is a cheap car. As an example, I suspect by the time you notice an engine fire there is a lot of melted wiring that you will have to fix by cutting back to good wires and splicing in another harness. That's not worth having a mechanic repair for $100 per hour on a $5000 car. As a shade tree mechanic I wouldn't mess around with it either.

I wouldn't spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to get quick access to a fire extinguisher to save a car. In fact, if I was near a car on fire I'd get away as quickly as possible unless someone was in it who need a to be rescued, hopefully I'd be able to help in that situation. It's just too much risk with too little reward for me. I can buy another car easily, I don't want to have to go through being burned. The trunk seems good enough except maybe if you get rear ended, someone is trapped in an on -fire car, and now you can't get the hatch open to get your extinguisher.

[Sclass]

That’s a good point. Reminds me of a car I lost in a fire. VW rabbit. It really burned. Every piece of rubber and plastic was gone. Every connector was gone. I had the car crushed. Another one I was working on with a friend burst into flames in the dorm parking lot. I sent my friend into the dining hall to fetch an extinguisher. By the time he came back the car was done. We had it crushed.

From a distance I saw an interesting car fire that some friends fought. They put out the engine fire with an extinguisher and it went out. Then it started up again. Then they put it out again. Then it started up again. When they tried to put it out a third time the extinguisher was done. And so was the car. My friend who fought it said the fire was so hot that it consumed the halon even after the flames were extinguished. When that happened the fire reignited.

Maybe that’s when I stopped carrying an extinguisher.

ETA - I like to have an extinguisher handy when I work on the fuel system. Sometimes you get a bad surprise when a car backfires out the intake and you have a lot of solvent sprayed in there.

[Ego]

I wouldn't spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to get quick access to a fire extinguisher to save a car.

I don't know. Had this guy brought along a fire extinguisher a lot of people could have avoided a lot of chaos. Forgive the link to reddit but I think it really does show how a tiny fire can escalate into big problems fast, making the loss of a car the least of your worries.

[Toska2]

My economy car's rear seats fold down. I can do this from the interior of my car. So mounting them to the back of the rear seat allows easy access either way. It also hides the bracketry and in case of bracket failure in an accident, prevents the fire extinguisher from being a projectile.

[jennypenny]

Do you have a handle along the side frame of the front windshield? You could strap it to that.

I think it's handy to have a container of some sort in the middle of the back seat floor to hold all kinds of things you might want to reach for from the front seat. Old coolers work well if you see one at a garage sale or thrift store.

tip: Fire extinguishers make great defensive weapons if needed (albeit expensive ones since they are one-time-use only), and can be used without getting out of your car.

[jacob]

Is your extinguisher bigger than the following?

It's a "regular red" one (not a spray can) about 1/4 bigger than the rear center console cupholder. I guess the answer is to find a slightly smaller extinguisher. The standard cupholder is 3". This seems to correspond to a 2.5lbs unit.

[Ego]

Did you try to squeeze the regular red fire extinguisher into the cupholder? The one I had in the trunk fits in the cup holder. Not perfect. It tilts to the front of the car a bit, but it fits. I decided to leave it in the cupholder as it is more handy.

[jacob]

[The current one] definitely does not fit. However, finding another extinguisher with a tight fit would solve most problems in terms of getting thrown out and becoming a projectile during a collision.

[Ego]

Another option is to get (or make) a cup holder expander