Just thought I'd bump this topic back up. If you don't have a fire extinguisher in your car, go out and buy one tomorrow and keep it in there.

Today while driving I came upon a car that had just caught fire. It must have happened less than a minute before I arrived because the engine compartment was barely smoking and there weren't really any flames. I was 2 cars behind, I immediately stopped and grabbed my fire extinguisher from behind my seat, while at the same time another lady grabbed an extinguisher from her car and gave it to the vehicle owner. He was spraying the hood of the car but it wasn't having any effect so I told him to pop up the hood of the car. I guess he misunderstood me, he popped the hood the came around front and tried to open the hood and was greeted with a rush of flames and dropped the hood again. Since I didn't have any gloves I was still trying to shoot through the small gap above the radiator, then tried from underneath or through the vents, but with no luck. Either way, we emptied 2 of the small size (I believe 5lb?) fire extinguishers and did nothing more than delay the fire. I could tell the fire wasn't out, and was beginning to grow again as soon as the extinguishers ran out. At that point there was nothing we could do but watch and wait, a motorcycle cop had arrived but no sign of the fire department, so there was nothing I could do except move my car out of the way. I'm sure the car is a total loss because by the time I left flames were already growing again and parts of car were literally melting onto the ground.

What I learned today:

1) Carry a fire extinguisher. A big one. A bigger one. Maybe 2 really big ones. Those small extinguishers are better than nothing, but not much better. Even though I've had to use one before to put out a kitchen fire, I was still surprised at how quickly they run out. It's probably 10, maybe 15 seconds at most, but in the excitement it really feels like you only get 2-3 seconds of use. It might be enough to help someone escape out of a burning car, but won't do much to put out the fire. I used to have 2 extinguishers strapped to my roll bar, but at some point I must have taken one out, I wish I had kept it in there. Even with 3 small extinguishers I doubt it would have made much of a difference, and it's probably not going to do much other than delay the fire a bit, but it's still better than sitting around watching someone car just go up in flames and being able to do nothing.

2) I'm going to keep some leather gloves next to the extinguisher. If the car's on fire, you're probably not gonna want to touch it, but if the fires in the engine compartment, it's pretty well sealed and i don't know how you're supposed to extinguish it if you can't even get to it. I think if I could have opened the hood a couple of inches just enough to get the nozzle underneath it might have worked. At the very least gloves might let you get a little closer without burning your hands

3)Fires grow very, very quickly. When I first saw it the car was barely beginning to burn. In the 10-15 seconds it took me to stop, get out and grab the extinguisher and run 20 ft to the car, the fire had already grown to a point that I was pretty sure that there was no hope of saving the car. I just wanted to make sure there wasn't anybody still inside.

4) I've been putting off buying a vehicle specific fire extinguisher because of the $200 price tag, but now it doesn't seem that expensive anymore. At the very least I'm going to upsize my current one to maybe a 20lb dry, because I'd rather deal with the mess of cleaning up the chemicals than watch my car burn to the ground.