Fire Extinguishers

[ChrisG]

Not sure if this is in the correct area, please move if not !

This is really prompted by Amar's sad post.


Back in the very late 1980s I volunteered to be a fire warden at work.
A large building, three floors, large core area with various working areas etc and a staff of several hundred people.
Part of the training was a whole day at the Berkshire Fire & Rescue training centre.

VERY informative.

Various films - some very scary.
Experiencing a smoke filled room
They did let us off the tunnels underneath....
Anyway oneof the last things we did was a 2 metre square tray of burning very inflamable liquid - and we got to use different types of extinguishers ( to teach you what to use on what and what not to use BUT we had already been taught NOT TO FIGHT but get out.... however....

Having seen what a quick blast does to a fire I went and bought extinguishers for the two cars we had.

With Amar's electrical fire he would have needed a battery cut off switch as well and an extinguisher may not have had much effect once a fire gets hold but one never knows.

[Emjay]

we used to carry fire extinguishers in our company cars. Then it was decided that it wasn't safe to tackle car fires with a small hand held and we are always advised to leave the car to burn. Not suprising given the fact that you are essentially sitting on a big fat petrol bomb.

I've not read Amar's tale of woe yet but safe to say if mine ever went up I'd stand well back.

[Isimmo]

And some of the regular extinguishers, powder, or AFFF would have struggled with a loom fire behind a dash as they'd struggle to smother the fire of oxygen....

Years ago, we had BCF's and they'd tackle anything (basically they starved oxygen), but they were bad for the ozone, so everything smoldering has to burn out instead....