Speaking from experience, unless you have a BIG fire extinguisher, the kitchen sized units are useless in an actual emergency. They have about 10 seconds of spray and then they're done.
Keep one in your car by all means. I have one in every vehicle I own but a total loss fire 3 years ago in one of my vehicles showed me how pointless they really are.
You will be better served by carrying a FIRE BLANKET in every vehicles. If I had one of those instead of the fire extinguisher, I could have smothered the fire before the entire vehicle went up in flames.
The reason I started carrying extinguishers in the first place is because of a fire under the hood of my 68 Camaro in college. Luckily I was at home when I saw the smoke. I ran into the barn and grabbed a quilt that we used to lay on while changing oil or whatever.
I put out the fire immediately and only had to replace plug wires and other rubber stuff. The wiper motor had caught fire.
I found out many years later after the advent of the internet that Chevrolet wiper motors in 1968 had a known flaw and caught fire for no reason.
Anyway, fast forward to 2021 where I discovered that in a real emergency with an underhood electrical fire, the extinguisher ran out before the fire was out and the entire car went up in flames. A blanket would have smothered it in a few seconds when it was just getting started.
