Fire extinguishers were invented by George William Manby in the late 18th century. Manby created a device that could be used to extinguish small fires. It was made of a copper vessel filled with a mixture of water and potassium carbonate. This invention could work by pressing a lever, which would then release the mixture into the fire.
Before Manby’s invention, the main way of fighting fires was to use buckets of water to douse the flames.
