Fire!

[Chems]

Shadowfax is much more qualified and experienced to answer this than me, but the CO2 is a gas which means very small vapour particles and it disperse rapidly which means that its cooling effect is rapid but diss-appears quite quickly once in the atmosphere. But water when used effectively will have a huge surface area and hang in the air around the fire removing the heat rapidly which is of course one side of the fire triangle. Remove one side (heat, energy, oxygen) and you've won.

But once again in small scale if its just a motor thats burning and the power is off and of the above will probably do the job.


Its on the bigger scale that it comes to water, what we do as Firefighters when we enter a fire is we use our high pressure hose reels on a spray setting to fire off short blasts into the smoke layer in the room - not at the fire initially, this removes the heat extremely rapidly so much so that as it expands you will see the smoke almost expand out towards the head of the house (the branch) I'll have a look on youtube for the video they showed us on training.

Have a look at this one:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=xmeEaW8dtCI

At about 3 minutes you can see the trainee using the "pulses into the smoke above the actual seat of the fire. The sound of breathing through the breathing sets really sets the adrenaline running for me.

But just remember, if its anything more than a few flames, run away its what I'd do if I was outside and its what all of you should do as well if you value your lives - doesn't matter how many lie nielson planes are going to burn.

 

[Digit]

To be honest BSM I think the chance of a serious shock under those conditions is minimal unless you were making very good contact with earth for example.
Mind you, I don't intend carrying out any live experiments.
Granted the CO2 under those condition is cold but its ability to cause significant cooling must be very small with it being a low density material.
I'll bet your mate takes some flak though!

Roy.

 

[big soft moose]

You're probably right digit , and like i said i'm not going to argue with chems and shadowfax who are far more qualified than me (being a fire officer at a workplace involves a one day fire awareness course once every two years)

thanks for explaining guys - much clearer now.

one thing i would like to ask you to though is why they made all fire extinguishers red with labels on ?

IMO there was much less room for confusion when only water was red , and foam was cream, powder was blue and Co2 was black ( and halon was green but thats banned now)

 

[Digit]

They're not all the same colour BSM. They are red with a secondary code colour to show the type of content.
The all red ones are water based?

Roy.

 

[big soft moose]

They're not all the same colour BSM. They are red with a secondary code colour to show the type of content.
The all red ones are water based?

Roy.

yeah but the secondary colour is only on a label and if it peels off you have no way of telling whats in it (I've condemned several extinguishers for that recently)

also if it faces away from you you cant tell if you are in a rush

and thirdly the extinguisher is still predominantly red which could lead to misunderstandings.

i still say that it was better before so if it werent broke why did they "fix" it ?

 

[Digit]

yeah but the secondary colour is only on a label and if it peels off you have no way of telling whats in it

Yep! So I'll hazard a guess that the regs weren't worked out by a fireman.
If I had my way they would be either different shapes or sizes so that you know what you've got your hands on in smoke.
I know! You should be out of the building if it's that smokey.

Roy.

 

[Chems]

lol if the building is that Smokey and your picking up a fire extinguisher its going to be the first thing I pick up off your dead body.

There isn't enough water or power in any extinguisher to put out more than a little tiny fire really. But if you can nip a small fire in the bud your going to save a lot of money and maybe lives.

 

[Digit]

I agree Chems, but it would overcome the problem of trying to ascertain which extinguisher is which. I did actually run up against the problem once where the part of the factory was in darkness, just the emergency lighting in operation.

Roy.

 

[big soft moose]

lol if the building is that Smokey and your picking up a fire extinguisher its going to be the first thing I pick up off your dead body.

There isn't enough water or power in any extinguisher to put out more than a little tiny fire really. But if you can nip a small fire in the bud your going to save a lot of money and maybe lives.

I'd totally agree with you chems too - the only reason to pick up an extinguisher in a building that smokey is to use it to break a window and make your escape.

whats your take on the fires extinguisher labelling question chems - better now or better before ?

 

[pinkyinboro]

i had a jet site saw about £300
after a little setting up there are a great machine for the price
bigger then there look too

 

[woodchip]

I've bought a new Metabo Tkhs 315M.

Its a site saw, with wheels so I can get it out of my way in the workshop.

I fired it up last night (fired, geddit, oh well, please yourselves), really quiet (induction motor). Will assemble it all after crimbo and get back to making sawdust.

Got a good deal on Ebay by the way from a Lawnmower Retailer in Blackpool.

 

[Chems]

lol if the building is that Smokey and your picking up a fire extinguisher its going to be the first thing I pick up off your dead body.

There isn't enough water or power in any extinguisher to put out more than a little tiny fire really. But if you can nip a small fire in the bud your going to save a lot of money and maybe lives.

I'd totally agree with you chems too - the only reason to pick up an extinguisher in a building that smokey is to use it to break a window and make your escape.

whats your take on the fires extinguisher labelling question chems - better now or better before ?

Its another case of money over sense, saves the factories a bundle of money if they can spray all the cases the same colour. Money is all its about.