AFFF Fire extinguishers

[Horsebox]

The FIA have taken BCF fire extinguishers off their list of approved extinguishents. Last sunday July 27th, a Manta 400, running in an Irish Forest Rally was burned to the ground.
What started off as a small under bonnet fire soon turned into a raging inferno, purely because the AFFF fire extinguishers once again proved usless. Following competitors stopped in convoy with over 10 more of these useless extinguishers and they too proved as useless as an ashtray on a motorbike.
How can the FIA justify using AFFF on the grounds of it being environmentally friendly, when plumes of smoke entered the Ozone while a Clubmans car was reduced to ashes.
Will someone have to lose their life before the FIA see sence.

[Woolley]

Could you clarify - is this for onboard extinguishers or general use? Halon were removed because of environment reasons, but dry powder is very much in use at circuits and hillclimbs. I would have thought hand held (not plumbed-in) were still ok to be powder.

You have to remember, also, that powder will not necessarily keep the fire out if the car is hot enough and there is still something that will ignite, and the technique for the using the two extinguishants is different.

[imull]

The FIA (and also RACMSA) have banned the use of Halon entinguishers and in the UK AFFF has been compulsory for a while now (18months I think). Within a rally car there is to be a main plumber in system and ahand held. These must be AFFF, it was also ok to carry additional Halon ones, however, I think that these are now also illegal in British Law...

On the Mutiny rally in 2002 there were 2 cars that were total losses due to the total inability of AFFF to put a fire out.

Cant comment about racing circuits but would imagine they are on borrowed time.

AFFF is very bad at putting a fire out but very good at stopping re-ignition apparently, opposite of Halon ones I believe...

[A. C. E. motors]

Halon extinguishers are banned at all UK racing circuits.
We were told by our scrutineer at the end of last season that the plumbed in halon extinguisher on our single seater had to be changed for a AFFF one with the nozzles being changed too.
He added that the halon was a much better extinguisher, and would do a much better job of putting out any fire, but we still had to change it, even though it was still in date, because of environmental laws.
With rules being made to make everyone safer in motorsport, why have they taken a step backwards and endangered life, not to mention the risk to peoples property, with this stupid ruling?
Come on MSA let us use fire extinguishers that put out fires quickly and with the minimum hassle.

[JR Ewing]

Halons/BCF are illegal to let off into the atmosphere. What I want to know is what do they do with all the discarded ones then?

These should have been allowed to stay but banned refilling - thus they would have disappeared over time anyway without everyone having to fork out £££s now...

[alfasud]

I'm told that you can only really destroy Halon's in a special furnace, otherwise they find their way into the environment, sooner or later. I'm also let to believe that in the U.S.A. you can use a Halon fire extinguisher in a race car. They don't make/import any new Halon, but it gets recycled.

I have an ABC powder extinguisher in my race car. I don't know anything about AFFF but there's a report I found that claims that a "2.5 pounds ABC dry chemical extinguisher is as effective as a halon 1211 unit with 5 pounds of agent".

Refer section 8.3.1 in the following report:

http://www.epa.gov/spdpublc/snap/fire/status.pdf

Of course powder is a mess to clean up, but that's not a direct safety issue.

[imull]

Halon were banned becuase they are environmentally unfriendly. Of course, a car (paint, tyres, fluids etc) burning away is nowhere near as bad as that!!!


A subject I find particularly worrying as I am buildign a fibreglass car...

[avsfan733]

doesn't burning fiberglass in an enclosed space produce cyanide?

[Woolley]

OK, now I'm with it. From someone who's done a bit of firefighting on circuits, here's the lowdown as I inderstand it.

Halon/BCF extinguishers are ozone depleting and are banned for that reason. Plumbed in extinguishers must be AFFF. Their primary use is to cool things down - crew particularly in order to pu out the flames. They are very good in the right circumstances, but in small quantities will struggle once the fire has taken hold. We've been told recently of a new substance that is coming on stream soon which does the same job as Halon without the nasty side effects - suggest contact the MSA and see if they have details yet.

As far as I am aware, there is nothing to stop you carrying an ABC dry powder extinguisher, which will knock down a fire very effectively before applying light water to seal any inflammable liquids and apply cooling to anything that may cause re-ignition. A 2kg model should suffice for most fires.

[imull]

thanks for that reassuring commetn there avsfan