John,
That is interesting what you said about sand buckets. I grew up with auto mechanics and wood workers. They had buckets of sand available for small fires typically caused by the grease/oil they worked with. My husband is a broadcast engineer and he mentioned that the DirecTV sites have buckets of sand available all over the place for small fires that you would not want to spray water on (i.e. electrical, grease, batteries). When I then started working in labs later in life, it made sense to me that some labs had sand available - especially if they were working with chemicals that would be bad to throw water on. To be clear, the sand was meant for SMALL FIRES. You should never be trying to personally battle some wild blaze with a bucket of sand.
As an undergrad at Heritage University studying chemistry, I was NOT provided with hands-on fire extinguisher training. When I was hired (as an undergrad) as a lab tech by that same institution to prepare materials for labs and help in labs as necessary, I was NOT provided with hands-on fire extinguisher training.
When I started at UConn as a graduate student in the department of chemistry and a teaching assistant, I was NOT provided with hands-on fire extinguisher training. We were told by the department that they did not want us using the fire extinguishers under any circumstances. EHS verbally supported this position saying that, under any fire circumstances, they wanted us to just evacuate.
This means I went through a 9-year chemistry education having never been formally taught hands-on how to use a fire extinguisher.
I believe that they felt they were ensuring that we wouldn’t stay in the building battling a big fire. The actual result is that all of us were using what we knew coming in to the department to put out small fires and not reporting them since we were told to NEVER FIGHT ANY FIRES.
Best,
Jessica A. Martin, Ph.D.
NSF Graduate Research Fellow (2018-2021)
Joint Safety Team, Founding Member (2018-2021)
Pinkhassik Group, Department of Chemistry (2016-2021)
University of Connecticut
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David & All,
From my recollection, fifty- sixty years ago, most undergraduate chemistry labs allowed only the TA’s and staff to use fire extinguishers. Depending upon the university, often there would be two buckets of sand in opposite corners of each lab to handle and contain small bench fires and two buckets of dry sulphur powder in the other two corners to handle mercury spills. Depending upon the incident, the students were allowed the control the fire or spill either the sand or sulphur powder. I think that today that sand and sulphur practice has been terminated due to the potential mixing them up and students throwing sulphur on the fire and sand to contain the mercury. Some institutions today have may have one or more ABC and D fire extinguishers depending upon the size of the lab but also only allow TA’s and staff who have been trained/certified to use them. There are even a few institutions who have an alarm activated if the fire extinguisher is removed from its wall mounting.
All My Best,
John Callen, PhD
Retired
ACS/DCHAS Founding Member
It has come to my attention (anecdotally) that some academic institutions, as a matter of local policy, forbid students to use fire extinguishers. I am thinking more of research, than teaching, labs in this regard. I think this is a wrong-headed policy since some small fires can be easily extinguished using fire extinguishers (usually ABC) that are required to be in labs. Extinguishers are designed for use (using the PASS method) by untrained persons - although I would always argue for hands-on training. I would not favor the policy that requires extinguisher use (as this could lead someone attempting to inappropriately fight a “too large” fire) but forbidding use seems foolish.
I ask the list: 1) How common (do you think) is the policy of forbidding use? and 2) what are the arguments for this “no use” policy?
Dave
David C. Finster
Professor Emeritus, Department of Chemistry
Wittenberg University
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