Does your Car have a Firexo Extinguisher?
In the UK, more than 93,000 cars go up in flames, which equates to almost 250 car fires a day. To tackle a car fire it takes up to three fire engines, full crews, and as much as 1,800 litres of water and an hour to put it out. Sometimes, firefighters need to use foam to put out car fires, but this is harmful to the environment and requires permission from the Environmental Agency to be able to use it.
On top of the immediate risk on life and personal property, car fires also cost the taxpayer an average of £15,000 to resurface the road afterwards, and if it’s a major fire that results in three lanes being closed for several hours, this can cost the economy around £1.5 million per incident.
Why does it take so long to put out a car fire?
The first reason is that modern cars are made up of multiple different combustible materials and fuels, which all fall into different classes of fire. The different classes of fire are A (Solids), B (Liquids), C (Gases), D (Metals), E (Electrical), and F (Cooking Oils). Each class requires a specific method to fight the blaze and due to cars being made of materials from different classes, they require different methods of extinguishing. Current traditional firefighting methods are not able to tackle all these classes within one fire quickly enough.
The second reason is that a car fire can reach temperatures of up to 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit in just over 10 minutes, which is the average time it takes for the fire service to respond to a call out. The main tool of the fire service to fight a fire is water, and it works by taking heat from the fire, which makes it unable for the fuel to continue burning. This does take a long time with water as the fire is so hot, to begin with.
How can a Firexo extinguisher help?
The only solution to the problem is to combat all the classes of fire at once. Firexo can put out car fires containing electrical, fuel, oil, gas, fat, solid materials, and metals quickly and efficiently. It works by removing the oxygen and heat from a fire, meaning it takes up less volume. In a test, 9 litres of Firexo put out a car fire in just 53 seconds, which could mean a rapid-response motorcycle could hold enough of the liquid to put out up to three cars on fire.
Firexo is biodegradable and also cools materials to a temperature in which they could be handled, enabling a vehicle to be recovered and removed quicker. This results in the amount of disruption on the road and the environmental impact to be reduced. All these factors make Firexo Mass perfectly suited for firefighters to put out car fires as quickly as possible with as little second-hand impact as possible.
Firexo is not just for the professionals, imagine if every motorist carried a Firexo Spray Can or a Firexo 2L Extinguisher in their glove box or their boot. Small vehicle fires could be caught early, and in the majority of cases, emergency services wouldn’t need to be called out. With this knowledge of how Firexo works, motorists would be confident to act to contain small fires. The driver may only end up with their vehicle having to be recovered by a breakdown service, instead of losing the whole thing to a fire.
It’s time for change
Modern car manufacturers and designers are incorporating more technology into new cars to safeguard us, including autonomous cruise control and emergency brake assist, with Volvo previously sharing their vision that by 2020, ‘no one should be seriously injured or killed in a new Volvo car’. But UK motorists are still unprepared for a fire, and it doesn’t help that, by law, our vehicles don't have to have any form of fire safety equipment in them, and due to this, most choose not to.
It’s time for a change, and the simple idea of carrying an effective fire extinguisher with you in your car could save a life. If you are interested in a Firexo extinguisher, get in contact with us at Firestoppers today on 0800 799 9514, or click here to fill out our online enquiry form.
