Basics

This page aims to go over the various types of fire extinguishers, their use cases, and best practices for storage/implementation + use of them

Potential Concerns

Since it is important to Teach The Why Not Just The How , and all that, this aims to teach many of the lessons that led to the development of the many types of fire extinguishers/the overall (generalized) history of them all

Water Fire Extinguishers are one of the oldest (Think Bucket Brigades etc)
They are cheap and easily accessible and MOSTLY work (especially with more “conventional” fires such as Wood, Paper, or SMALL mixed/cooking fires etc
As Petrochemicals and large scale/commercial or industrial cooking came online however, their issues were discovered
A large amount of burning grease/petroleum products (such as Gasoline , Diesel , or Lubricating Oils etc) will float on the water, thus short of COPIOUS AMOUNTS of water (as demonstrated by Mythbusters), or by use of several aqueous solutions/mixtures as discussed later,

Dumping water on an Electrical Fire / an Energized “Mixed” Fire such as a House Fire or Electrical Appliance will just lead to an energized puddle, and likely an unextinguished fire

While anything is preferable to complete destruction brought about by a (prolonged) fire, the “mess” a fire extinguisher causes can lead to hesitation, or in certain cases (Such as Breaker Panels or Server Rooms etc), expensive damage
For the former, “ The Best Safety Device is the One You Actually Use “ applies, so potentially having a less “messy” extinguisher such as a CO2 Fire Extinguisher , Pure Sodium Bicarbonate Extinguisher , or smaller “Fire Spray” or even goofy designs such as the Element Fire Extinguisher as your first line of defense for “excipient fires”, then a typical ABC or K Fire Extinguisher as your “this is now past the point of messing around” fire extinguisher may work well
- One potential downside to this would be it leading to people hesitating/mistaking fires that would call for the PROPER fire extinguisher for something thry could manage with other methods etc; having only the proper fire extinguisher doesn’t carry this issues
  - All in all this just highlights the role of training/people understanding the “why” not just the official stance/policy etc