Is it necessary/do you have a fire extinguisher in your diesel engine compartment.

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mocruising

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We don't but we are thinking of fitting one. I know its an insurance requirement on an inboard petrol engine but was wondering if any insurers out there insist on it for a diesel engine. I had one on my last boat but see few today fitted on modern boats.
 
Extinguisher

We have a 2Kg dry powder with automatic trigger mounted in the engine compartment. I'm wondering why you are even asking the question. Is it about saving money? IMHO the releatively minimal cost of an extinguisher is irrelevant to the potential costs of a fire.
 
mocruising said:
We don't but we are thinking of fitting one. I know its an insurance requirement on an inboard petrol engine but was wondering if any insurers out there insist on it for a diesel engine. I had one on my last boat but see few today fitted on modern boats.
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Surely it wants to be outside the engine compartment unless it's an automatic system. If you have an engine fire how do you get to the extinguisher???
We carry 3 x 2.5 kgs in the saloon under which there is the engine and generator. Also 1 kg in each cabin.
 
Don't know about insurance but in some countries it may be a legal requirement.

I mentioned this on the Portuguese hassle thread.

A mate of mine on the next boat in the marina was intercepted by the Portuguese Navy on passage from Lagos to Albufeira.

Amongst other things they picked him up for having no engine room extinguisher (boat is about 35 years old).

He was instructed to return to Lagos, install an extinguisher - (€140.00) he told me - take photographs and show to local Policia Maritima.

I stress that this did not happen to me personally - just to a friend. He could, of course, have made it all up.
 
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Certainly automatic extinguishers are pretty cheap these days; if your engine space is too cramped to fit one(they often need specific orientation to work properly) a flame detector and a small access hatch the size of an extinguisher nozzle would be a reasonable substitute.
 
'is it necessary' is the interesting part of the question. Other than to satisfy the requirements of insurers, although I don't know of one who makes such demands, what are the statistics on engine room fires in small, diesel powered craft? Diesel fuel is pretty difficult to ignite, for example I have gas welded diesel tanks without needing to take mega precautions. It needs a good ignition source, fuel in spray form and probably quite elevated temperatures. Whilst I can see that there is a possibility for all three, although a pretty remote one, it would be interesting to know how often it has ocurred.
 
If there is a fire it is more likely to be caused by electrical fault such as frayed wires or a seized starter rather from fuel. Fires on board underway are very rare - but not unknown as the example in one of the mags recently showed. Electrical fire behind the switch panel. Fumes were so bad had to abandon ship and rescued from liferaft. south of Sardinia.
 
A cautionary tale:
a few years ago I responded to a mayday from a sailing vessel on fire near Jura. Evidently there'd been an engine room fire which the automatic extinguisher had...er, automatically extinguished. Then the skipper started the engine again....

Result was an utter write-off, although thankfully both aboard got away in the tender unhurt. Luckily it was a flat calm.
 
If you do fit one ensure it is gas, powder destroys all the wiring. Also ensure that it is heat sensitive not smoke or a slipping fan belt will trigger it. We don't have one but do carry a mix of powder and gas extinguishers.
 
Most people do believe it is good practice even if it is not a legal requirement. Powder is not good as it can do nasty things to engines if ingested. If using manual external units then it is best to have small inlets to inject your extingising medium ratherb than having to open a large opening allowing lots of fresh oxygen in. The simplest and in my opinion best solution is an auto halon replacement unit sized to suit your engine compartment (they cover specific volumes depending on size) with a decent sized foam as back up.
 
vyv_cox said:
'is it necessary' is the interesting part of the question. Other than to satisfy the requirements of insurers, although I don't know of one who makes such demands,
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We had to get one. The insurers didn't specifically require it, but the surveyor said it should have one, and, as a matter of course, the insurers wanted all the surveyors recommendations carried out.

As others have said, can be tricky to arrange the ideal position, especially in a tiny engine compartment like ours. We read the warnings to avoid powder extinguishers, but didn't find a non-powder one small/cheap enough for us. (Would probably be easier now with more internet info and retailing.)
 
I believe if you look at the small boat safety checks as carried out by the RNLI there is no requirement for an extinguisher in th engine room.
When I asked about this I was told that a fire in there is to a certain extent contained allowing people to get off the boat but there are more serious injuries caused by people trying to put the fire out themselves.
 
We had an empty (!) Halon auto extinguisher fitted in the engine compartment of our yacht when we bought her earlier this year. Surveyor said to replace, and so we did, to comply with insurance. That said, I would have done anyway - a 2kg halon gas replacement is only about £75 on the Internet, and even if the chances of a fire directly from the diesel are slim, there are a lot of heat generating sources in the compartment (alternator, fan belts etc), so I think it is worthwhile.

Neil
 
No its not a price issue, we already have a large builder installed DP ext. at the engine compartment entrance. I read a report recently about a crew boat diesel engine automatic DP ext. (China build) that went off due to vibration, the powder was ingested and caused 100 k US$ worth of damage to the engine , it just got me thinking. We were looking at an automatic Co2 system with a glass bulb all mounted above the engine in the compartment with the nozzle pointing down.
 
If you have an automatic fire extinguisher in the engine compartment, then you must have an auto engine shut down too. Otherwise all the extinguishant goes straight out through the exhaust.

Much better to have an alarm system, external fire extinguishers set off manually through a small hole in the engine compartment.

I suppose you then need a remote fuel shut off as well.
 
Chris_Robb said:
If you have an automatic fire extinguisher in the engine compartment, then you must have an auto engine shut down too. Otherwise all the extinguishant goes straight out through the exhaust.
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That'll be the oxygen-rich extinguishant, I suppose? I gather Ford are developing a halon engine, on the grounds that it'll never wear out. ;)

Seriously, are you quite sure about that?
 
macd said:
That'll be the oxygen-rich extinguishant, I suppose? I gather Ford are developing a halon engine, on the grounds that it'll never wear out. ;)

Seriously, are you quite sure about that?
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Never tried it myself (!) but I have been told that it does not stop the engine but probably makes a load of black smoke through incomplete combustion. It is still sucking air with Oxygen into the engine compartment. The volume of air moved by an engine is very large.
 
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