ceedee,
I've seen a very good demo of CO2 vs. Halon. It was a large grid of briquets, arranged so air could circulate freely. Once lit, it REALLY didn't want to go out. Water had no effect but create loads of steam. CO2 appeared to put the fire out, but it re-ignited almost instantly the CO2 blast stopped. Blasting with CO2 from a large cylinder for about 3 minutes, then dousing with water to help cool, which would have dealt with most fires, made it steam for about 10 seconds before it ignited again.
After this, the smug demonstrator, walked up with a smallish HALON extinuisher and gave it a 10 second blast.......then calmly walked away.
Job done.
HALON will travel down a confined space, when squirted at one end of a tunnel, it will put out the fire at the other. It reacts chemically with the fire somehow and in my view is PFM. I wouldn't sit in an aircraft without it!
As stated above, lets get the Commissioners to go see a demo at an Airport Fire Training unit. It would certainly open their eyes and wake them up some.