Fireboy-Xintex
Grand Rapids, Michigan, since 1973 — automatic fire suppression for engine rooms, plus the carbon-monoxide alarm that is the most-ignored safety device on any boat.
Fireboy has been building marine fire suppression since 1973, and the combined Fireboy-Xintex line covers the two things that kill people in enclosed spaces: fire and gas. Automatic clean-agent systems flood an engine room without anyone opening the hatch — which matters, because opening the hatch is the mistake. The detection half covers carbon monoxide, gasoline fumes and propane. Since 2021 it has belonged to United Safety and Survivability Corporation, and its catalog is mid-transition to the FK-5-1-12 clean agent, which is a status worth knowing before you buy a replacement bottle.
- 1973Fireboy founded — marine fire suppression from Grand Rapids, Michigan
- 2021Acquired by United Safety and Survivability Corporation from W.S. Darley & Co.
- 2023The automatic-only HFC-227ea CG2 series went obsolete in the clean-agent transition
What we'd reach for
- Clean-agent engine-room systemsAutomatic total-flooding suppression sized to the compartment — the product the whole company is built around.
- Marine carbon-monoxide alarmsThe one every boat should have and many don't. CO from generators and neighboring boats is invisible and routinely fatal.
- Gasoline fume detectorsThe bilge sensor that decides whether starting the engine is a good idea.
- Propane and methane detectorsFor galley systems, where a leak pools instead of rising.
- Engine shutdown systemsCutting the air supply when the agent discharges — otherwise the engine inhales your suppression.
- Aetna tachometers and accessoriesThe instrument side that came along with the corporate history.
Fire in an engine compartment has one rule that governs everything else: do not open the hatch. Air is what the fire wants, and the reflex to look is the thing that kills people. Fireboy-Xintex exists because of that rule. Its core product is an automatic total-flooding suppression system that discharges into a sealed compartment on its own, without anyone going near it.
Fireboy has been doing this from Grand Rapids, Michigan since 1973. Xintex brought the detection side. Together they cover the two ways an enclosed space kills you: fire, and gas you can’t smell.
The alarm nobody buys until they read about it
Carbon monoxide on a boat is a genuinely underrated hazard. It comes from generator and engine exhaust, it can be drawn back into a cabin by the airflow around a moving vessel, and at a raft-up it can arrive from the boat next to you. It is colorless, odorless, and the early symptoms — headache, nausea, drowsiness — are indistinguishable from a long day on the water. People have gone to sleep with it.
A marine CO alarm is cheap, and marine-rated is not the same as the household unit from a hardware store: the environment, mounting and power are different. Fireboy-Xintex makes them, along with gasoline fume detectors for the bilge and propane and methane detectors for galley systems, where leaking gas pools low instead of rising.
If you take one thing from this page and buy nothing else on this site, take that one.
Clean agents, and a transition worth knowing about
Suppression systems here are clean agent — they flood a compartment with something that stops combustion without soaking machinery in water or powder. The industry has been moving from HFC-227ea to FK-5-1-12, and Fireboy’s own materials note that the automatic-only CG2 series became obsolete in 2023 as part of that shift.
That is a catalog status, not a recall. An existing installed system is not unsafe because the series was discontinued. What it does mean is that long-term parts, refills and service for legacy agents become a question worth asking before you buy a used boat with one fitted, or plan a replacement.
One more piece of systems logic, because it’s the sort of thing a product listing never explains: an engine shutdown accessory exists because a running engine will happily inhale the suppression agent straight out of the compartment you just flooded. Suppression and shutdown are one system, not two accessories.
As always, the approval belongs to the model. ABYC, UL, USCG and SOLAS/MED may or may not apply depending on the product class and the vessel — read the specific manual and data sheet rather than assuming a brandwide rating. That discipline is the same one this site applies to SMC’s NFPA ratings and Nightstick’s hazardous-location certifications.
Owned by a safety group since 2021
United Safety and Survivability Corporation acquired Fireboy-Xintex from W.S. Darley & Co. effective 30 September 2021 — Darley and Larry Akins having formed Fireboy-Xintex LLC in 2017, bringing Aetna Engineering’s instruments along. It’s a clean, dated chain, which after McMurdo’s three-party tangle is a pleasure to write.
Where Fireboy-Xintex fits
Any boat with an engine compartment. Automatic suppression is the difference between an incident and a total loss.
Every boat with an enclosed cabin. The CO alarm. See above.
Gasoline-powered and propane-equipped vessels. Fume and gas detection, where the sensor is the only warning you’ll get.
Not for: handheld firefighting — you still need extinguishers, and this isn’t them. Not for anyone treating installation as optional; a suppression system sized or mounted wrong is a decoration with a certificate.
Why we rate them
Fifty-plus years on enclosed-space safety. The engine room is a specific problem and this is a company that only solves it.
Detection and suppression from one house. Fire and gas are the same hazard family and they’re treated that way.
And the CO alarm deserves the page on its own. It is the cheapest genuinely life-saving item in this entire catalog, and almost nobody talks about it.
When the compartment is sealed and something has gone wrong inside it, we reach for Fireboy-Xintex.