Where can I get another fire extinguisher?

I was wondering the same thing. I've seen them at my local hardware store, nearly every truck stop (Iowa 80 sells different sizes), Walmarts, Sam's Clubs, Auto Parts Stores (Autozone and NAPA), and the local Freightliner Dealer.

Something I try using (sometimes unsuccessfully) is Google's search engine. As long as I have "Location Services" enabled for Google on my smart phone, it will generally show me where I can buy certain merchandise. In this case, the closest place I can buy a Fire Extinguisher at the Lowe's in Palmyra, PA.

 

You can buy them just about anywhere.that flying j just happen to be out at the time the op wanted to buy one.Just bee bop on down to the next truckstop and try there.

 

Make sure you get a 5B:C if you don't haul hazmat, or a 10B:C if you do.

 

Next time maybe the OP will remember that those extinguishers are useless except for a beginning fire when only smoke is present. If the flames have started ..... pointless for these small extinguishers!

 

Except if enough drivers do the old school thing of coming to another driver's aid and keep coming with puny extinguishers to keep the fire knocked down until the fire department gets there . In a truck stop there's no excuse for sitting and watching another truck burn without doing anything except take pictures .

 

So how many 10 lb extinguishers would equal 250 gallons of water? I retired from firefighting, been on scene with plenty of auto fires...as soon as the heat/fuel/air mixture is sufficient to ignite to flame, you would need at least 30 of the extinguishers at a never ending, close proximity, and directly aimed at the source. In most cases, the source (ignition point) is not in line of sight or in a position to have direct base stream. In this case, at the battery box (electrical ignition point), the source of ignition must be removed...battery acid nasty substance..continue on to plastic and or oil or diesel....no group of extinguishers will dent the fire.

In a "black smoke fire"...meaning some sort of petroleum fuel which includes plastic...the fire unit will "soap" the water, creating a foam smothering effect, not a drowning effect. The smothering is required for a petroleum fuel source...water (without the foaming) will only spread the fire... extinguishers don't offer this effect. What an extinguisher is designed to do is to eliminate the oxygen at initial source, and not in a smothering way, but a chemical eraser to the oxygen. The "fire triangle" must be met....heat, fuel, and oxygen...remove one leg of the triangle fire contained. Keep in mind the definition of fire: The rapid oxidation of combustible materials.

Unless you are at a truck stop the size of Iowa 80, and every driver in proximity to the fire were to race in with their extinguishers....with one person organizing and keeping the steady onslaught of chemical....REALLY???...this would happen??? NOT!

 

As I read your post I heard Robert Deniro's voice from Backdraft.

 

Tell that to the girls in the car who rear ended my truck a few years back. The car was badly damaged (they were doing upwards of a hundred, I was doing 50 or so) and they had to be extracted with saws and the jaws of life. While waiting for emergency services to arrive their car started burning, by the time my codriver made it to our fire extinguisher and back, and the driver who stopped to assist made it back from his truck, the flames were going pretty well, but it only took one fire extinguisher to put it out. Otherwise there's a good chance that they would both have burned to death in that car.

 

Yeah a guy next to me had his starter lock up on him. By the time I saw the fire (overheated battery cable) his fire extinguisher was already out. I took my 5 pound extinguisher and was able to keep the fire out as he tried to unhook the battery's. He gave up and eventually the battery's ran down. Very minimal damage with only a 2 pound and most of a 5 pound extinguisher.