When it comes to fire safety, there’s no such thing as having “too good” of a fire extinguisher. Something a lot of people don’t realize, however, is that not all extinguishers are made equal. What you want in most cases is an “ABC” (sometimes written as “A B C” or “A:B:C”) fire extinguisher like the Amerex B500, which works on three of the main classes of fires:

1. Class A fires involve ordinary combustibles like wood, paper, trash, fabrics, rubber…anything that leaves an ash.
2. Class B fires are fueled by flammable liquids like oil, gasoline, greases, tars, paints, etc.
3. Class C fires stem from live electrical equipment, including home appliances, motors, and generators.

There are also Class D and Class K fires that involve combustible metals and commercial kitchen fires respectively, but most people aren’t going to encounter those in their normal lives.

Since it contains mono-ammonium phosphate rather than the regular sodium bicarbonate found in BC extinguishers, the B500 extinguisher is multi-purpose enough to handle Class A, B, and C fires equally. And, since it has all-metal valves rather than cheap plastic ones, it won’t break on you when you need it most — which is exactly what you want when your safety is on the line. Amazon reviewer “onetiredpup” agrees:

One more item of note and an important one. Some of our wonderful new items utilize plastic components to save weight and also ease the manufacturing costs, weight and end consumer price. Wonderful for many products, not wonderful for an extinguisher. YOU want METAL, especially in the handle. There is NO comparison in this. You go and grab that plastic handled unit and apply pressure and it doesn’t work or breaks, well . . . your mind can work as well as mine. One more important thing. This is a 5 lb. unit where most are 3 lbs. or less. It’s pretty easy to decide. This is for my and my families safety, I am not going to “cheap out” on this item and truthfully, neither should you.

Having a trustworthy fire extinguisher on hand can make all the difference when it counts, although I hope you never have to use it.

Get the Amerex B500 for $60 on Amazon.