How many Fire Extinguishers do i need?

[CHM]

Having just had a significant fire on my boat, I can tell you those little chemical fire extinguishers are nothing more than a decoration to check the Coast Guard safety box. They are cheap and not worth a damn when the chips are down. I thought they would be adequate having never had this experience, but was completely wrong. Invest in an automatic system. That’s a must! Learn from my experience! As far at handhelds are concerned: spend the money on good extinguishers. Not the little Kidde ones. You never think it’s going to happen to you.

[wkearney99]

What's current state of the art for engine rooms? I've got a pair of Caterpillar C-12 diesels.

The unit I have installed now is labeled a Sea-Fire FM-200 FD-850M, and dated 4/2004. I don't see any other labeling or tags. The boat's 'new to us' from last season.

Obviously I'd prefer to never need an extinguisher, but what's my best replacement for this?

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by wkearney99

What's current state of the art for engine rooms?

One I saw on a 65’ Viking first closed the air intake louvers, shut down the motors by closing fuel valves and armed the fire bottles.
Exactly what is done in aircraft.
I saw all this because I was assisting them on why their engines wouldn’t start, they had a shorted battery that overheated and the fire system shut down everything and I assume didn’t fire the bottles because the flame detectors didn’t detect flame.
That is an assumption, but when we disconnected that bank from charging and let it Cool the engines could be started.

I’d say that was pretty state of the art myself.

My Zeus plotter will connect to two cameras, I will one day get off of my butt and install one in my engine compt., that way I can observe without opening the door.
I have a large Halotron fire extinguisher and a Halon right by the compartment and installed a “window” for a fire extinguisher hose to be poked into the compartment, first shut down the motor of course, but you don’t want to open the compartment if you can at all help it.

If I had an honest to goodness engine “Room” I’d want something along the lines of a huge CO2 or whatever is recommended bottle installed with the hoses plumbed into the correct places, but so that I could manually discharge it and fill the room so completely with non flammable gases that combustion couldn’t occur.
This is Halon’s perfect use case, if your in the US, it is an option, expensive yes, but it’s an option.
Apparently don’t go overseas with it, unless it’s an airplane I guess, then it’s OK.

If you do it with CO2, just realize that there won’t be enough oxygen in the room to support life, so don’t forget that.

[dkenny64]

well..let's see.
halon in the engine room - old school.
1 in the master stateroom - aft - escape hatch over the bed.
1 in the nav station area - mid ship
1 in the galley mid ship - opposite the nav
2 in the main salon - one on each side
1 in the vberth.
all current and up to date.


on a 43' boat..


even move the one in the galley to a better location if the something on the stove catches fire.. Prior owner had it mounted over the freezer passed the stove...


-dkenny64

[a64pilot]

A “fire blanket” isn’t a bad idea for the galley, just don’t put it too close to the stove that you can’t get to it.

Then I think Kenomac pointed out that his Wife connects a hose to one of the sinks in the head, sometimes lots of water is a good agent if say upholstery catches fire.

A fire has always scared me, worse than a sinking, a fire will put you in the water right now, with nothing.

[wkearney99]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

... a fire will put you in the water right now, with nothing.

Which reminds me that I need to put a suitable knife in the ditch bag to get rid of the dinghy straps. We keep a RIB on the platform and it'd be pretty easy to get that off once the straps holding it down were free. The ditch bag is right back there in the cockpit, with nothing EVER in front of it.

I agree with the other comments regarding not going into the engine room while anything's smoking/on fire. The hatch lift on ours is electric and it's not exactly speedy. That length of time making fresh air available would not be a good thing.

I'll have to double-check what the system is supposed to do in the event of fire. I believe the intake/exhaust blowers are powered off as part of the system firing, but I don't think there are any powered louvers.

[Sailor 99]

Halon fire extinguishers not allowed in Canada due to Ozone depletion.