A fire retardant is a substance other than water that reduces flammability of fuels or delays their combustion. This typically refers to chemical retardants but may also include substances that work by physical action, such as cooling the fuels; examples of these include fire-fighting foams and fire-retardant gels. The name fire retardant may also be applied to substances used to coat an object, such as a spray retardant to prevent Christmas trees from burning. Fire retardants are commonly used in fire fighting.
Home fires damage about 400,000 homes, and cause just under 7 billion US dollars in direct damage annually in the United States. Because of the importance of prevention, fire retardation has become a very notable industry.
Read more about Fire Retardant: How Retardants Work, Environmental Concerns
Famous quotes containing the word fire:
“Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; but urge me not to use moderation in a case like the present.”
—William Lloyd Garrison (1805–1879)