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:
“I sometimes left a good fire when I went to take a walk in a winter afternoon; and when I returned, three or four hours afterward, it would be still alive and glowing. My house was not empty though I was gone. It was as if I had left a cheerful housekeeper behind. It was I and Fire that lived there; and commonly my housekeeper proved trustworthy.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)