Fire Extinguisher Types - A, B or C

Every year people lose their homes and loved ones to fires that could have been stopped had a simple fire extinguisher been available.  If used properly and stored in a handy place in your home, a fire extinguisher can help prevent a small fire from turning into a large fire. 

When considering which fire extinguisher to purchase, it's essential to know the different types of fire extinguishers available.  Some fire extinguishers are better suited to different types of fires.

How To Determine The Correct Fire Extinguisher For Your Home

By Gregg Hall

Do you know that there are three different types of fire extinguishers that are each meant to tackle three different types of fires? In your home, do you have the right type of extinguisher to handle a fire that sparks from faulty wiring? What if your car's engine caught on fire, would have the right one in that case? Can you recognize which extinguisher works with which fire?

If you can't answer all the above queries with satisfactory answers, then it is likely that you are not as informed as you should be about fire extinguishers and how to safely employ them. However, in the article below you will find all the information you need to help prevent a minor flare up from becoming a home consuming conflagration.

The first thing you need to do is to get the right type of extinguisher for the particular location you are seeking to protect. This is of paramount importance, as using an incorrect extinguisher on a fire can actually make the blaze worse and harder to control, or even put your life in peril.

To use a classic example, water, you might think, puts out all fire. And it works well on fires that are burning wood or wood products. But for fires that are burning grease or oil, or that are caused by electricity, using water as an extinguisher is an exceptionally bad idea. It exacerbates grease fires and can cause you to get a nasty, if not fatal, jolt from electrical fires.

There are essentially three classifications of types of fires. These are from the system designed by Underwriters Laboratories, and are as follows:

• The first type of fire, or Class A fires, are those that arise when the most common household products ignite. These include fires that are burning wood, paper, fabric, rubber, or plastics.
• Class B fires are liquid fires.
• Class C fires are those that either burn liquids or solids, but which are ignited by a source of electricity.

The method of extinguishing fires varies according to the type of fire.

To put out fires there are three common methods, the first of which sprays out a mixture of chemical dust and the latter two of which spray the fire with gas. The dust based fire extinguishers have the drawbacks of coating everything they spray with a fine patina of chemical residue, which can be very difficult to clean up and which can ruin some consumer electronics. The first type of gas extinguisher is made from the gas carbon dioxide. It works by smothering the fire. Carbon dioxide extinguishers can get frigidly cold at the nozzle, so never, ever, touch the nozzle of the extinguisher. The last type of extinguisher is halon. Halon has been linked to some health problems.

Gregg Hall is an author living in Navarre Beach, Florida. Find more about this as well as a how to use a fire extinguisher at http://www.rechargeablefireextinguishers.com

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