Fire extinguisher?

[Skip]

Great post Mosca . We do have one in the kitchen cupboard that shows it's ok but it's old and the one in the garage that's close to where I cook outside should be checked too! It's on the list for tomorrow! Thanks for posting.

[Mosca]

Just ordered one. I picked a good one, I don’t think fire extinguisher is a place I want to pinch pennies.

[texastweeter]

Had a vertical smoker grease pan/water pan catch about 2 months ago. shut off propane, left door shut, and closed all the dampers with a long metal spatula to put it out. Had to replace the water pan as it warped too bad to be saved, and will have to replace the fire gasket on the door, but no harm. If it counts, my wife was manning it for this cook. Now she wont come near it

[Sasquatch]

I have one. Probably not in the best place since I keep it under the gas grill in the storage cabinet. Most likely couldn't get to it if there was a serious fire. The hose is about 10 ft away. Also you are supposed to change out your fire extinguishers about every 5 years or so. Check on your extinguisher. There usually is a "sell by" date. I bet mine are due for replacement.

[Nightrayne]

Well - for what it is worth, this subject is actually part of my day job so here are a couple of thoughts:

There are three main places everyone should have a fire extinguisher: in the garage, in the kitchen, and beside your bed in the master bedroom. The third location is because if a fire occurs at night, you then have a way to fight to your way outside or to your kid's bedrooms and go out the window. about 1/4 to 1/3 of your time is spent sleeping each day and you will never make it to the kitchen/garage and back in time in a real emergency.

A 2A:10BC fire extinguisher is enough for the average person to put out a fire in a small 2-3 gallon wastebasket, and that's it. Yes, it can be used to put out a moderately larger fire if you know what you are doing but most people don't practice. If you have a wood shop, or anything with bigger hazards - invest in a bigger fire extinguisher (like a 10lb 4A:40-60BC unit with a hose).

Garden hose is excellent, especially as a backup to a fire extinguisher, but remember it should NEVER be used on a grease fire. Turkey fryers, pans of drippings, or a grease flare up from a griddle or grill's grease trap should only be put out with either a dry chemical extinguisher or, better yet, a K-rated unit.

Personally, I keep three mains in the house and a roving 5lb ABC rated unit when we are cooking outside or have a fire going in the chimenea or fire pit. Just my two cents.

[Nightrayne]

sos2979 Yup!

[Nightrayne]

Mosca, exactly

[CaptainMike]

Not to get into a you-know-what contest, but we would regularly train office folks like secretaries and such how to use their 2a10bc. Our prop was the bottom 1/3 of a 55 gal drum with about 2" of 60:40 diesel to gas. Even the most timid could douse that with plenty left over. However, as Mosca said, a fire extinguisher is not the place to count pennies.

[ecowper]

I keep, as CaptainMike suggests, an extinguisher in the kitchen (under kitchen sink) and another in the garage. My outside cooking space is 20 feet from the kitchen sink, through a sliding glass door. I also have a charged water hose within 10 feet. Since I cook on a Hasty-Bake and a WSM, my thinking is that a significant grease fire would be fully contained within my cooker and easily controlled by closing the hood or putting the lid back on.

[ecowper]

CaptainMike when I was in the Army, we had a GP small canvas tent catch on fire one night. It took 13 20lb fire bottles to put out the tent and the contents within (sleeping bags, rucksacks, etc). I've always kept extinguishers close at hand after that.

[CaptainMike]

Dang, those things shouldn't be able to burn that easily. Did someone remove the "Do Not Remove" tags?

[ecowper]

you know how they tell you to make sure your stove pipe doesn't get cherry red all the way to the tent roof?

[ComfortablyNumb]

Since nobody has mentioned it, I will. A lid. One that fits your cooker. Second, a wet towel. Big and soaking in a bucket of water. Toss that on any flame that the lid does not cover. Then resort to the hose or fire extinguisher. If that fails:

[Barry Friesen]

I built one into my BBQ work area.

[Huskee]

I don't. But my hose is about a 15 second grab away, and the pool is 20' away.

[Polarbear777]

Have always solved issues with lids first but have an extinguisher under the separate work table nearby.

[Spinaker]

Absolutely. One in the kitchen, Two on the patio. (One is just water.) Never had to use them, but I am ready if need be. The way I see it, it's like rain gear when your fishing. If you have your rain gear......clear skies......if you don't, you better believe there is gonna be a down pour. Way she goes, Rand. Way she goes.

[Mosca]

This one is a little bit heavy, Mrs wouldn’t be able to lift it. I’ll get a smaller one.

[Steve R.]

I can't say I have ever really had a fire in a cooker that didn't involve gas and/or a lot of grease that should have been cleaned up from a prior cook, etc. Putting the lid on always works for everything else. Then again, I always cook on a spot in my concrete driveway that is 25'+ wide outside the side entrance garage.

[jfmorris]

I used a dry chemical fire extinguisher on a grill grease fire exactly once. I was cooking pork belly slices as an experiment on my Weber Genesis gas grill, which has Grillgrates, and let the fact that the Grillgrates block flareups blind me to the fact that lots of grease drippings could start a fire BELOW the grates, which quickly escalated in nature. I will say that the extinguisher I used, which hung in my garage for like 15 years, spewed out lots of what appeared to be baking soda, quickly dousing the flames. The pork belly was a loss. Since that time last year, I keep an extinguisher near my gas grill at all times.

[adamcoe]

Yeah definitely don't wait till you have a fire to go out and get a proper extinguisher. Similar to some of you, had the grease box (which I should have emptied more regularly) go up and then VERY quickly take over the entire inside of my old gas grill. Had an extinguisher but it was down in the basement (we have a wood shop) and in the 45 or so seconds it took to get it, come back up, and actually begin fighting the fire, it had been been belching smoke out the sides of the grill, discolouring the freshly painted side of the house (goddamn stucco!). Anyway opened up the lid, which of course fed the flames even more, but got it taken care of fairly quickly although sadly not before destroying a fair bit of what would have been delicious pacific salmon. A garden hose would NOT have been the right tool for this job I assure you so those of you that don't have one, pony up the 40 or 50 bucks. We've all spent far more on grills, accessories, and meat, so there's no excuse for not having one close by.