Years ago, Tim was enjoying a picnic at the park with his family when he looked up to see flames shooting up near his Buick.
Someone had dumped hot coals from their barbecue into a dumpster right next to where he’d parked.
“We saw the smoke going up probably an eighth of a mile away, and I said, ‘Hey, my car is going to burn up!’ I took off running across the field,” he recalls.
He’d had a fire extinguisher in the back of his car for years, though he'd never really expected to use it. But that day, he was able to put out the fire fast enough to save his car.
Ever since then, he’s made a point of keeping fire extinguishers in all of his vehicles. Not only his daily driver, but his other cars too, even his antique 1928 Hupmobile.
“I have three daughters, and from the time they started driving, I always made sure they had a fire extinguisher in their cars as well,” he says.
That foresight paid off one afternoon in 2024 at a busy gas station.
Tim was filling up a five-gallon can with ethanol-free gas for his antique tractor, which has problems with particulates clogging up the fuel system.
He used a filter funnel in the neck of the can to catch any debris, a pretty standard precaution among people who run antiques with sensitive carburetors.
Then, in an instant, it happened.
“I'm just pumping away, filling the gas can. Suddenly there was a whooshing sound, and flames shot up a foot high,” he says.
The gas in the funnel had ignited, possibly from static electricity, putting him in the worst possible situation.
If the five-gallon can at his feet caught fire, it could spread to the pump. And the sprawling gas station had at least a dozen pumps.
He had only seconds to react.
“If I’d taken off running, I would have lost the truck and everything. But I didn't even have time to think about that. I just knew I needed to get rid of that filter,” he says.
Without hesitation, Tim grabbed the flaming filter with his bare hands and hurled it as far away from the pumps as he could.
Then he ran to his truck and grabbed his H3R extinguisher from the center console.
“There was about a four-foot wide swath of burning gasoline and plastic,” he says. “I pulled the pin and blasted it. The fire went right out, instantly.”
After that, nothing was left but a molten mass of plastic and metal. Miraculously, Tim hadn’t even burned his hands.
“As I was driving home, it occurred to me that it could have been a real disaster,” he says. “But I knew where the fire extinguisher was.”
“Always carry a fire extinguisher. Always, always. Because you just never know what's going to happen.”
—Tim Arnold, Pennsylvania
Tim’s story is a stark reminder that a fire extinguisher can make all the difference between a close call and a catastrophe.
Fires don’t just happen at racetracks. They can happen anywhere. At the park, on the road, at the gas station.
And when they happen, they happen fast.
But his quick action proves that keeping an extinguisher within reach is the best way to stop a fire before it becomes a disaster.
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