Fire extinguishers in the Workplace Advice : from PPE Safety

Fire extinguishers

All workplaces in the UK are legally required to provide and maintain fire extinguishers that reflect the risks the potential risks in your work environment. Fire authority, building's inspectors or insurers may recommend which extinguishers install.

Fires

Think carefully before tackling even the smallest of fires. Remember - safety first!

Fire is the chemical reaction between three important factors -

Heat : Sources of heat can be from smoking, electrical heaters, or electrical equipment.
Oxygen : Oxygen is in the air (21%) The more exposure to oxygen a fire gets, the more it will burn.
Fuel : Fuels are anything that can burn, like paper, solvents, flammable gases and even some metals like magnesium can combust, at the right temperature

Remove any one of these three fire elements and it will be extinguished.

Dependent on the fuel or ignition source, fires are grouped in to five different classes.

Class ‘A’ fire is a flammable solid, like wood, waste paper and fabrics and some plastics.
Class ‘B’ is for liquids, like solvents, petrol kerosene, and some oils.
Class ‘C’ is for flammable gases, like butane, propane and natural gas.
Class ‘E’ is for electrical fires. the fire may have been started by an electrical fault but is not sustained by electricity but the fuel around it.
Class ‘F’. A special class of fire specifically for oil in deep fat fryers.

Choosing the right fire extinguisher for the job

Excluding fire blankets, there are 4 different types of fire extinguishers in use.

Water Extinguishers: Water removes the heat from the fire and is ideal for class A flammable solids, like wood, paper and fabrics. Of course water conducts electricity and is dangerous to use on fire where the fuel is flammable liquids , the water may just disperse the liquids over a larger area.
AFFF : Aqueous Film Forming Foam is a multipurpose extinguisher used for class A flammable solids and particularly effective on class B flammable liquid fires. By forming a film or layer over the burning liquid, it smothers the flames by removing the oxygen.
Dry powder works in the same way as AFFF by removing the oxygen from the fire. Although safe to use on all common types of fires, including electrical, they can create a large amount of mess.
Carbon Dioxide, or Co2 gas, as this is a gas there is no mess at all. by purging the surrounding air from oxygen the fire loses one of its essential requirements, Co2 is suitable for class B, flammable liquid and electrical fires.
Wet Chemical (potassium acetate)is considered a specialty agent and it is designed specifically for fires involving deep fat fryers.

New fire extinguisher Regulations

In 1985, an EU Directive required all fire extinguishers to be red in colour with only a small flash of the old British Standard allowed although it is not compulsory to replace old fire extinguishers, although when the extinguisher needs replacing it must be replaced by the new style.