Fire Extinguisher (2)

Fire extinguisher play a vital role in early stage fire fighting and are considered as active fire protection devices - designed to control small fires. Primarily, there are two types of extinguishers i.e. stored-pressure and cartridge-operated. The expellant and the fire fighting agent are stored in the same chamber in an extinguisher’s stored-pressure unit.

In a cartridge-operated extinguisher, the expellant is stored in a different chamber. The chamber has to be punctured for the expellant and fire fighting agent to come in contact prior to discharge. Extinguishers are further classified based on the type of extinguishing agents used in them. Some of them are water and foam, carbon dioxide, clean agent, water mist extinguishers, etc. In UK, fire classification based on the combustion material causing a fire is enforced under the BS EN 3 standard with a total of six fire classes.