Portable Fire Extinguishers: Types, Use and Colors
>> Feb 20, 2016
Today fire
extinguishers are one of the most popular ways of fire fighting. They are
essential for commercial buildings, homes, cars and in fact any place where the
risk of fire takes place. In this article you will learn about the main types of fire extinguishers and their uses.
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Image:en.wikipedia.org
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Water Extinguisher
These extinguishers
are colored with red color and are usually used for fires involving burning of
any organic solid materials including paper, wood, plastics, cloth, coal etc.
Water is the main active “ingredient” which has a great effect on cooling the
burning surfaces and so reducing the pyrolysis rate of the fuel.
These extinguishers are also colored in red
and are used for setting out the same fire types. However, these fire
extinguishers can offer significantly improved capability of fire fighting if
compared to traditional jet type water fire extinguishers. They come in 3 and 6
liters tanks. The construction of this portable fire extinguisher type has a spray nozzle which
involves higher pressure that in its turn creates a fine spray. These fire
extinguishers are more efficient by more rapid extraction of heat.
Water mist fire
extinguishers are colored in red on a white background. They are used
for A, B, C rated risks and also for fats and deep fat fryers (which is class
F). Some models are also safe on electrical fires but only at a distance of 1m.
The principle of works lies on the fact that water is turned into microscopic
particles inside of the supersonic nozzle. So in fact it is water mist that is
drawn to the fire. This mist cools and suffocates the fire.
These fire
extinguishers are blue and are mostly used on fires involving burning
organic solids and liquids such as grease, oil, fats, petrol, paint, etc. but
definitely not on chip or fat pan fires. This type is also safe for gas and
electrical equipment fires. The power acts as thermal ballast cooling the
flames and so making the chemical reaction of burning impossible.
Dry powder
extinguishers are also blue and are mostly used on fires caused by
combustible metals such as magnesium, lithium, aluminum or sodium. These
extinguishers in fact simply create a crust which perfectly insulates the metal
in order to prevent access to all the other combustible material nearby and so
it smothers the fire and prevent oxygen reacting with the metal.
On
the market you undoubtedly can find more fire extinguisher types, but the
options described above are the most common and universal.
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