The liquid vaporized and extinguished the flames by inhibiting the chemical chain reaction of the combustion process (it was an early 20th-century presupposition that the fire suppression ability of carbon tetrachloride relied on oxygen removal.) In 1911, they patented a small, portable extinguisher that used the chemical. In 1910, The Pyrene Manufacturing Company of Delaware filed a patent to use carbon tetrachloride to extinguish fires. ** Source - wikipedia - In the 20th century, carbon tetrachloride was widely used as a dry cleaning solvent, as a refrigerant, and in lava lamps.
