Our discussion last week about fueling, fuel handling, and consequences of mishandling caused me to take an objective look at some of the safety factors involved in my refueling. Overall, I think I follow good practices and do a pretty safe job. However, I also realized that I am woefully short on firefighting measures if I should spark a fire while fueling. I'm driving around with a significant amount of fuel in the back of my truck and no fire extinguisher on the truck. Kind of dumb now that I think about it. I currently have two small (2 1/2#) dry powder fire extinguishers in each hangar. If you have ever tried to fight a gasoline fire with one of those extinguishers (I have), they are only good for about 5 seconds of spray with dry powder and usually not enough to do much good. What I found was that I initially hit the fire too close. By the time I got the extinguisher pointed at the right place, I was out of powder.
So thanks to you guys and this discussion, I ordered 4 20# extinguishers to post in my hangars and truck for fueling activities. Hopefully I'll never see the day I ever pull the pins on them. But I'd rather have them and not need them, than need them and not have them. How many of you carry a fire extinguisher in your planes? I don't. But I noticed that you can buy a 2# Halon unit just right for for small planes like our KRs on Amazon for $25 including a mounting bracket that's perfect for mounting it on the front of the spar just in front of the seat. I may have to order one for each plane. -Jeff Scott Los Alamos, NM
