Extinguishers in Domestic Property

[Ashley Wood]

John,

At one time they were looking at fixed high pressure water mist systems as they have been tested upto 33Kva. I do not know if they have gone any further with this? I know National Grid/Transco have installed these.

Ashley Wood
Thermatech Fire Consultants

[Tom Sutton]

Firewolf
The advice from most FRS on dealing with chip pans is to switch off the power supply and place a damp tea towel over the chip pan. Surely a fire blanket is a far safer and efficient method.
How are all those fires, that are not reported to FRS are are dealt with, would not providing FFE make the situation safer.
Finally are your views coloured by the possibility of litigation?

[AnthonyB]

LUL are replacing water extinguishers with 9 litre cartridge spray foams that have passed the 35kV test, but are still including CO2 in fire points that are anywhere near electrical risks, foams on their own are going where waters on their own used to be in the walkways/tunnels as oppose to main concourses and platforms

[Firewolf]

Firewolf
The advice from most FRS on dealing with chip pans is to switch off the power supply and place a damp tea towel over the chip pan. Surely a fire blanket is a far safer and efficient method.
How are all those fires, that are not reported to FRS are are dealt with, would not providing FFE make the situation safer.
Finally are your views coloured by the possibility of litigation?

Hi there

To a degree yes I think my views are coloured by litigation.

Its a very grey issue - if you dont provide F.F.E. would someone try and improvise and use something totally unsuitable fire extinguishing the fire? i'd suggest they would!

In this situation however it is far easier for a landlord to instruct all new tenants specifically not  to fight fire and simply raise the alarm and escape if a fire occurs.

If the landlord provides extinguishers he would then have to provide training and  for the reasons I mentioned before this would be inpractical in short term or "DSS lettings".


FW

[John Webb]

Thanks to Ashley & Anthony - I should have made clear it was the replacement of water extinguishers in the carriages by AFFF spray ones. I mentioned it because you are likely in the circumstances to have untrained people who might attempt to use the extinguisher; there semed to be parallels with the main thread of this topic.

[Tom Sutton]

Could the landlord provide the FFE and the leaflet from the "Fire Kills" website?
http://www.firekills.gov.uk/leaflets/pdf/english/fireequipmentforthehome.pdf
Would this not reduce the possibility of litigation?

[Pip]

Wet tea towels is old advice-although you may still find it in government produced pamplets etc.6 years ago my FRS was teaching to use FB's and not too use wet cloths-because what is the definition of 'damp'-too wet and you make it worse,too dry and the cloth catches light.I of course cannot speak for all the other FRS

[AnthonyB]

If you want to keep it simple, stick to a blanket, as I've done for premises where there is no legal requirement to do otherwise, however I've had extinguishers put into some student HMO's because the council &/or university accomodation dept have required it