Battery charging fires and class D extinguishers?

[Lapwing]

Screw up battery charging and Lithium fires are pretty tough to extinguish, but a class D extinguisher might be useful to have around. Any experience with these? I must confess to subscribing to the "there is no 'safe Lithium' battery" view.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_extinguisher#Class_D

 

[dak664]

A bucket of sand is all I've ever needed. Get several if you are paranoid.

 

[Link]

I'm not entirely sure it'd be very effective on a battery fire. The thing about fires like these is that the combustible material is right next to or combined with the oxidant, similar to an explosive. The reason fire extinguishers work is by either cooling un-burned material enough to keep it from igniting or separating the fire from a source of oxygen. Since, in this case, the fire would be hot enough to keep even water from cooling it down and the fuel/oxidant can't be separated, I'm not sure a chemical fire extinguisher would be much use over a regular one that would keep the flames from spreading.

But of course sand's always a good choice. :wink: