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tinguished quickly to prevent them from spreading.  Since one of the main reasons of carrying a fire extinguisher in our vehicles will probably be to extinguish a fire on either it or another vehicle, you definitely should choose an extinguisher with a B-C rating.  The reason is that flammable liquids, gasoline and other petroleum base products, are a vital part to every combustion engine vehicle.  Also, every vehicle has some sort of electrical system.  For this reason, the A-B-C rated extinguisher is generally the best suited to our needs.

       Now that I have established what classification you should look for, you must decide what SIZE to get.  Many times you will be limited to where you have to store the unit.  Also, it may be better to have two or three smaller extinguishers as opposed to one larger one.  The reason for this is that is might be impossible to get to one single unit, but having several on-board might give other options.

       Now that you have chosen and mounted your new fire extinguisher, how do you use it?  The first thing you must do is make sure the unit is in good working order.  The time to do this IS NOT at the time that you need it either.  Checking your extinguisher at regular intervals, say at each oil change, is a good idea.  Make sure that the pressure gauge shows that the unit is within proper specs.  Secondly, and just as important, make sure that there is nothing blocking the discharge hose.

       The first step is to get the extinguisher and pull the safety pin.  This makes the extinguisher ready to be used.  The next step to using the extinguisher is to get to the proper distance from the fire.  If you are so far away that the extinguishing agent doesn't reach the fire, the agent has simply been wasted.  However, you do not want to get so close to the fire that you risk injury.  The last thing you do is aim the discharge hose at the fire and squeeze the

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