Buying the Best Fire Extinguisher For Your Kitchen, Home or RV

Let’s talk fire extinguishers!

If you are the proud new owner of a home, equipping your new house with basic fire safety like a fire extinguisher make sense. 

Rating fire extinguishers is like evaluating the effectiveness of parachutes—you hope you never have to find out if it fails.

To get advice on buying the best fire extinguisher, we interviewed fire safety officials from three counties across the country. We got their buying tips on what to look for when considering a fire extinguisher. Then we poured over third-party research that compared extinguisher safety.

After all that research, here is some advice plus tips on buying a fire extinguisher:

• Fire extinguishers are rated A, B and C. A is for wood, paper, trash and some plastic fires. B is for flammable liquids. C stands for fires caused by energized electrical equipment. Hence, the most popular fire extinguishers are rated ABC for all three types of fires.

• The second number next to the letter refers to water equivalency (A, where 1 = 1.25 gallons)) and square footage of coverage (B). Hence, a fire extinguisher that is rated 1A10BC covers all fire types, is equivalent to 1.25 gallons of water and covers 10 square feet of fire.

• Make sure the fire extinguisher is UL rated. All the recommended products in this article have a UL rating.

• Always point the fire extinguisher at the base of the fire, not the top!

• The best fire extinguishers have a pressure gauge. Make sure the gauge is always in the green area—check this when you first get the extinguisher, as some extinguishers may accidently discharge during shipping. (Yes, you can have a used fire extinguisher recharged by a local fire equipment supply company).

Here are the best fire extinguishers based on our research:

Why Trust Us

We’ve been rating and reviewing products for the home and families since 1994. We do hands-on testing—we buy the products with our own money and evaluate with an eye toward quality, ease of use and affordability.

Here’s another key point: we don’t take money from the brands we review. No free samples, no sponsors, no “partnerships.” Our work is 100% reader-supported!