We have written your blog as a quick user-friendly guide for common UK fire extinguishers, other styles and specialist extinguishers exist.

Fire extinguishers are a vital fire protection measure from the workplace for firstaid fire-fighting. Fire extinguishers require annual maintenance and are also classed being a pressure vessel. However, some modern sorts of extinguishers require no maintenace by outside service engineers, as long as they are inspected at the very least annually by way of a competent person inside business – an effective user check is perhaps all that is required having a magnet to confirm for a deflection on the pressure gauge. The article covers common extinguisher types that want annual maintenance by the competent person – contracted service engineer. Regular extinguisher checks ought to be under taken trying to find signs of use, damage, decrease in pressure, correction location.

Portable extinguishers are predominately red in colour, signal red, reference BS 7863 and BS 5306-10:2019 with as much as 10% with the surface area from the body is coloured in a very band of colour higher than the operating instructions to name the contents with the extinguisher and be visible through 180 degrees. BS EN3 extinguishers are marked using a rating to show the maximum size test fire they are shown to extinguish with the class of fire.

Water extinguishers develop the colour banding as red and they are suitable for Class A fires only.

AFFF Foam extinguishers contain the colour banding as cream and are also suitable for Class A and Class B fires.

Dry powder extinguishers contain the colour banding as blue, French blue and are also suitable for Class A, Class B, and Class C fires. They are also appropriate for electrical fires.

Class D metal extinguishers develop the colour banding as signal violet, reference BS5306-10:2019.

Class F wet chemical extinguishers possess the colour banding as yellow, canary yellow and therefore are suitable for Class A and Class F fires. They can be rated for Class B fires.

CO2 extinguishers develop the colour banding as black and are also suitable for electrical fires and Class B fires.

The extinguisher can have written operating instructions in English displayed on along side it and will even be identified with the Class type, with the appropriate letter in the alphabet, as an example Class A, Class B etc and using a pictogram.

Class A pictogram is of burning wood.

Class B pictogram is of any fuel can.

Class C pictogram is of burning gas.

Class F pictogram is of oil burning in a very frying pan.

CO2 fire extinguishers will bear a power pictogram.

There isn’t any specific pictogram for class D metal fire extinguishers.

Water extinguishers extinguish fires by cooling, water is a wonderful and cheap medium because of this. The water is expelled from your fire extinguisher under stored pressure inside extinguisher. The water is expelled though a directable hose either like a jet or spray with regards to the fitting at the end from the hose.

AFFF fire extinguishers extinguish fires by cooling and smothering. The foam produces a barrier about the burning liquid surface preventing oxygen from fuelling the fireplace. It is stored and expelled in the fire extinguisher but expelled like a spray.

Dry powder extinguishers extinguish fires as being the powder melts thus smothering the hearth and excluding it of oxygen. Powder is expelled from your fire extinguisher under stored pressure.

Class D extinguishers extinguish metal fires when a crust is created around the surface with the metal which smothers the fireplace. The powder is applied with a lance as well as a fitting at the end with the lance under stored pressure.

Class F oil fires are extinguished having a wet chemical solution from an extinguisher under stored pressure. Wet chemical extinguishers were developed to extinguish olive oil fires in the safe manner the place that the wet chemical becomes a soap, cooling and smothering the hearth and preventing re-ignition. This process is referred to as saponification. Previously AFFF (aqueous film forming foam) foam extinguishers were often used that have been unable to cool and smother the oil based fire; the AFFF would stop working under the intense heat with the fire and enable oxygen into reignite the fireplace. The wet chemical solution can specifically manage the high temperatures from all of these fires, prevents re-ignition plus the wet chemical will not digest.

CO2 extinguishers extinguish a hearth by displacing the oxygen. Carbon dioxide is stored in the fireplace extinguisher under underhand and when expelled via a horn gets to be a gas.

Water mist extinguishers extinguish a hearth by cooling. Water is expelled through the fire extinguisher under stored pressure in the form of the mist. De-ionised water is stored in the hearth extinguisher and also the water ions usually do not touch. In this way, the extinguisher can extinguish class A, class B fires and can even be used to extinguish electrical fires. Smaller water mist extinguishers are rated for extinguishing domestic size cooking oils, fats, deep fat fryer fires.