Fire Extinguisher Types

Fire Extinguisher Types for Different Kinds of Fires

Fire extinguisher types depend on the kind of fire that they can be effective in subduing. Fires that happen now and then are also of several types or classes. A fire can start anywhere, anytime, depending on the circumstances obtaining in a particular office or building. The known classes or types of fires include:

1. Class “A” fires – These are the most common fires that occur which wreck havoc and destruction in many communities especially those that have mostly wooden types of houses. In big cities where there are many slum areas with these types of houses near to each other. Class A fires bring misery to thousands of the poor residents. This type of fire can start from just a candle accidentally burning a curtain and because it is left unattended, the fire usually spreads to other houses uncontrolled. The type of fire extinguisher, which could have subdued the flames at the start, is the water fire extinguisher if only there was one of it near where the fire started.

2. Class “B” – This type of fire starts from overheated flammable liquids such as paints, paraffin, petrol oil and the other kinds of flammable liquids in industrial use by many factories. Sometimes the paints in the painting section for example, of a factory making many toys for the children, catch fire accidentally and can burn down the whole factory if not attended to right away at the moment of the start of the flames. The foam fire extinguishers are the only fire extinguisher types suitable for use against these kinds of fire.

3. Class “C” – Overheated flammable gases such as propane, butane and methane cause the start of this type of fire. The fire extinguisher type that can respond to this fire type is the dry powder fire extinguisher. One must shut off first the gas supply, before any effective use of the dry powder fire extinguisher, as the fire will not stop if the gas supply is still there.

4. Class “D” – The fire extinguisher type that works against Class “D” fires which involves metals such as aluminum, magnesium and titanium are the Specialised Extinguishers.

5. Class "E" – These are fires which start from malfunctioning electrical appliances and faulty electrical wiring. It is dangerous to use just any fire extinguisher type on this one because of the electrical shock one can expect from it. The CO2 fire extinguisher type can handle this one,

6. Class “F” – These are fires involving cooking oils and fats that burn accidentally. Only the wet chemical fire extinguisher is the fire extinguisher types that can tackle this type of fire.

The six types of fires enumerated above call for the use of six different fire extinguisher types, and it is not safe to use just any fire extinguisher not suited to fight a fire type, especially those that can cause harm to the one using the firefighting equipment, to put out the blaze in its initial stage. One should thus use the right fire extinguisher type to avoid having any problem.