Portable marine fire extinguishers can save your life and your boat.

If your boat has an enclosed cabin, we recommend that you install one or more portable marine fire extinguishers. For example, one in the sleeping area, one at the galley and one that can be readily accessed from the cockpit.

West Marine offers inexpensive portable fire extinguishers that can put out a small blaze in seconds, provided you can get to the extinguisher, have the right kind of extinguisher and know how to use it.

Each portable fire extinguisher that West Marine sells is labeled for the types of fires that it can extinguish. Labeling uses UL (Underwriters Laboratory) letter designations to indicate the types of fires the extinguisher can fight; and numbers that refer to the firefighting “capacity” relative to other extinguishers. UL breaks the types of fires down to four classes: Class A (Ordinary combustible materials), Class B (Flammable liquids), Class C (Live electrical fires) and Class D (Metal fires). For more on the different classes of fires and help with selecting a portable fire extinguisher that meets the USCG requirement for your boat, please read our West Advisor article Selecting Fire Extinguishers.