I've been following this thread and have some thoughts.
Fire extinguisher training should be required for those who work with hazardous materials - researchers, staff, TAs, instructors. Don't neglect facilities staff. Undergraduates who are engaged in research should have training. No one should be "forbidden" from using a fire extinguisher but the training aspect needs to be emphasized.
As to the various flavors of extinguishers: I subscribe to the "keep it simple" principle when discussing a scary and potentially life threatening situation. In my various lab safety roles, I settled on ABC extinguishers for general use and dry sand for use with air reactive materials.
Here's my logic: ABC extinguishers are suitable extinguishing agent for most fires in the lab. It does deliver agent at volume and velocity and this is where training is important. Others have mentioned agent making a fire situation worse. Releasing an ABC extinguisher in a space will result in a significant mess to clean up. This becomes part of the calculus whether someone uses an extinguisher or not.
Dry sand (or Met-L X) will extinguish small fires - particularly metal or air reactive fires - quite efficiently. There isn't the problem of potentially blowing a powdery flaming material around with an extinguisher. I found researchers to be much more willing to use sand before an extinguisher.
We replaced CO2 extinguishers with ABC extinguishers as CO2 in some cases can make fire worse - magnesium, I'm looking at you.
We didn't have Class D extinguishers readily available. We had one for use with outreach events where we ignited magnesium. There are also different types of Class D extinguishers, specific to the type of fire. Class D extinguishers aren't really portable - the smallest one I had was on a wheeled cart and weighed close to 60 pounds. And it was specific to magnesium.
Keep it simple. Make it easy for people in a fire situation to make the right decision without too many choices. Stress that evacuating and pulling the fire alarm is always the safest response.
My $0.02.
My best
Debbie
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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