Firefighters within the Los Angeles area are slowly containing the Palisades fire, and native residents have began returning to some affected areas to sift through the rubble. Folks are finding their cars covered on this weird pink sludge, and so they’re starting to wonder: Is that this bad?
Well, because it seems, not likely. Phos-Chek, the pink fire retardant that firefighters are dropping on LA County, is definitely reasonably protected for cars. It’s noncorrosive, it washes off with regular soap and water, and even that vivid pink dye will begin to fade pretty quickly. The BBC found some advice about coping with Phos-Chek:
Perimeter, the corporate behind Phos-Chek, has advised up to now cleansing the powder off as soon because it is protected to accomplish that.
“The longer the retardant dries, the tougher it’s to remove completely,” they cautioned.
Perimeter doesn’t advise using a pressure washer, as one could push Phos-Chek into more porous materials, but the corporate claims all its retardants are “completely water soluble.” Phos-Chek needs to be removed quickly, to forestall it from forming a difficult-to-remove film, but it surely’s not going to eat away at your automobile. It’s intentionally designed to not, actually.
Phos-Chek is designed to be dropped from helicopters and airplanes, each of that are nearly all the time product of metal. Thus, the powder — the U.S. Forest Service specifically uses Phos-Chek MVP-Fx — incorporates corrosion inhibitors to maintain the planes and copters it’s in from breaking down. It’s barely saline, but far less so than the road brine used to maintain salt off wintry streets. But what else is in that powder? Could that be bad?
Based on the fabric safety data sheet for Phos-Chek MVP-Fx, the powder is primarily composed of monoammonium phosphate, the identical flame retardant you’d find in a dry chemical fire extinguisher. Monoammonium phosphate is somewhat corrosive, but that’s likely what Phos-Chek’s corrosion inhibitors are there to mitigate. The answer can be relatively acidic, comparable to your reference standard bird shit, but that may be neutralized with an alkaline cleaner.
All in all, Phos-Chek might not be implausible in your paint, but it surely’s not much worse than anything that’s more likely to land in your hood. Wash your automobile as you normally would, just save the pressure washer for after your first soap and rinse — and be thankful you’ve still got a automobile to clean in any respect.
This Article First Appeared At jalopnik.com
