When Dustin rounded the final corner at the track, he knew something was terribly wrong.
The black flag was out, and the safety car was right behind him. Whatever had just happened, it was serious.
Then he saw it.
His friend Mike's MR2 was stopped ahead. Flames roared up from the open engine bay.
"I come around the last corner, and there's one of my best friends, Mike. His car is literally burning to the ground." Dustin recalls. "I could see he'd already used up his fire extinguisher."
But the engine fire was still raging.
A thrown rod had punched through the block next to the manifold, and the oil had immediately ignited. Now flames towered over the mid-engine Toyota, and the fire crew hadn't arrived yet.
In an oil fire like this, every second counts. Waiting for the fire crew to arrive could take too long. Mike's MR2 was seconds away from becoming a total loss.
Dustin knew he had to do something, and fast.
"You're told never to stop on the track because it's dangerous. But the safety car was right behind me, so I knew I was the last one coming off the track. There were no unknowns left," he says. "And Mike's car was going to burn to the ground."
Dustin didn't hesitate.
He pulled up and reached down beneath the seat of his BMW M3 track car for his HalGuard clean agent extinguisher.
"I didn't even have to unbuckle my harness. I just reached down, grabbed it, and handed it out the window," he says.
Mike gratefully took the extinguisher and attacked the fire.
Oil fires like this are notoriously hard to put out, and they can easily reignite. But armed with the extinguisher, Mike was able to knock the fire down and stop the damage from spreading.
"It gave him enough time for the fire safety crew to get there, and so his car was saved," Dustin says. "It was pretty dramatic."
This was not the first time Dustin had witnessed a car fire up close.
"Over the past ten years, I've seen at least five people's cars go up in flames on the track, and they didn't have a fire extinguisher," he says. "Most of us build our cars ourselves, and you don't want to lose all of that time and commitment because of one stupid thing you don't have in your car."
Fire can happen to anyone, and it spreads fast. The best defense is having an extinguisher ready.
Outside of his track car, Dustin also keeps an extinguisher in his daily driver and on each wall of his shop. "Stuff happens," he says.
He was the last one off the track that day, but he had the right tool within reach. And because he didn't hesitate, his friend's car is back on the track.
"Mike still races that car today," Dustin says. "It's the one that got saved."
"I'm an architect, and fire safety is something we always consider. If you're using your vehicle for anything beyond everyday driving, you should have a fire extinguisher. Fires happen. The worst thing is not having something to put it out."
— Dustin Furseth
Stop the Fire. Save the Car.
H3R clean agent extinguishers knock down flames without leaving damaging residue on your engine, interior, or electronics.
Every H3R extinguisher is backed by our Emergency Replacement Guarantee.
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