History & Background

The first automatic fire extinguisher was patented in 1723 in England by chemist Ambrose Godfrey. The first version of the modern portable fire extinguisher, which was invented by Captain George William Manby in 1818, consisted of a copper vessel of 13.6 liters of potassium carbonate solution under compressed air. In 1866, Francois Carlier patented the soda-acid extinguisher in France, followed by Almon M. Granger, who patented a version of one in the United States in 1881. The chemical foam extinguisher was invented by Aleksandr Loran in Russia in 1904. In 1912, the Pyrene Manufacturing Company of Delaware filed a patent for using carbon tetrachloride (CTC) to extinguish fires. In 1911, they patented a small, portable extinguisher that used the chemical. DuGas came out with a cartridge-operated dry chemical extinguisher in 1928. ABC dry chemical brought Super-K from Europe to the United States in the early 60s. Purple-K was developed by the United States Navy in the late 1960s. In the 1970s, Halon 1211 came over to the United States from Europe, where it had been used since the late 40s or early 50s. Halon 1301 was developed by DuPont and the US Army in 1954. Halon is still in use today, but is falling out of favor for many uses, due to its environmental impact.

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