Although ISO 7010 has been around since 2003 the UK has continued to use British Standard 5499 as the template for all safety signage. This year this is set to change with the final adoption of ISO 7010 as a European norm ISO EN 7010. Effectively the Standard has become European law thereby obliging the UK, as a member state, to adopt it. Despite its name the ISO (International Standards Organisation) is essentially a European animal and the adoption of ISO EN7010 outside of Europe is entirely at the discretion of individual nations. The grand design that envisages the same safety signage in use worldwide is still a distant prospect.
Not unlike, in fact very like BS5499 the new European Standard uses symbols or pictograms to get the message over, many almost indistinguishable from the UK standard but all designed to be understood irrespective of language; recognition that across Europe at least the workforce now comprises an eclectic mix of nationalities with varying fluency in the country’s native language.
Fortunately after several false starts the final emergence of ISO EN 7010 has been well trailed in advance and many manufacturers have sensibly jumped the gun with the introduction of ISO 7010 compliant safety signs. Fire Protection Centre has already taken action to ensure availability of the new signage.
There is no need for businesses in the UK to panic as it is more than likely that when the full detail is published the implementation will be phased and will certainly not require businesses to remove and replace their existing BS5499 safety signs. More likely is that if you purchase any new safety signs that are included in the catalogue of EN 7010 symbols you should opt for the new standard version.
Although the new ISO 7010 pictograms will become universal across Europe this does not mean signage within the UK or other Euro member States cannot carry text based instructions alongside the graphic in the native language so English speakers – or rather readers, may notice very little difference to our existing  BS5499 signage.

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The MSA who oversee competitive Motor Sports in the UK have very strict safety regulations and require cars to carry a fire extinguisher during competitions for use in the event of accidents. They have come down firmly in favour of foam fire extinguishers (also known as AFFF fire extinguishers) either in a standard hand held version or in some race classes, particularly in championship motor sports, plumbed in systems designed to flood the cabin and engine compartment.

In days past Halon extinguishers were used, as the gas is inert and non-toxic but the subsequent ban on Halon due to environmental concerns brought AFFF to the fore. The Zero 2000 reference for AFFF is I think a brand name rather than a specification and I see no reason why our range of AFFF equivalents would not suffice provided, as ours do, they carry the manufacturers name, type of extinguishant, capacity in litres and method of operation, as required by the MSA.

Recent developments may pave the way for the reintroduction of gas based extinguishers in the form of FE36. Like Halon FE36 is a ”clean” gas and non-toxic and has better fire knock down performance than AFFF. We have supplied automatic fire extinguishers in the form of FE36 extinguishers for engine compartments and the protection of sensitive electronics for many years. FE36 hand held fire extinguishers are already approved by the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile). Proprietary brands include the Zero 360 but they are a good deal more expensive than AFFF.

Coming back to AFFF it is worth considering why the MSA prefer it over other alternative extinguishants. True AFFF is designed to tackle fires involving hydrocarbon fuels so is useful for small burning oil and fuel fires and as it is water based also works on burning solids. The downside is that as AFFF is water based the discharge may adversely affect any exposed sensitive electronics in the car. I can see why Carbon Monoxide gas extinguishers are not on the approved list as being trapped in an enclosed cab full of CO2 could be lethal.

However away from motorsports ADR Classified HGV’s (i.e. those that carry hazardous loads) are also legally mandated to carry fire extinguishers but not AFFF. The Directive calls for a minimum 4KG dry powder extinguisher in the cab. AFFF does not get a mention.

ABC dry powder extinguishers are effective on solids, petro-fuels and flammable gases – and can be used safely where live electricity is present. I suspect that AFFF is preferred because it is better suited to discharge in confined spaces than powder although this only holds true for plumbed in systems. If you are tackling a fire from outside of the car my choice would be a dry powder specifically a Monnex powder fire extinguisher which has exceptional knock down capability. Monnex is what you would find in F1 pitstops.

For the present  at least it seems AFFF is your only option under MSA rules.

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Having posted several blogs about the various benefits and uses of fire extinguishers and fire safety products in the home, last week I had the opportunity to test the theory with some real life fires.

We are in the process of producing a library of safety awareness videos, shortly to be posted on this website – so look out for them.

As part of the video project we actually lit some fires (under controlled conditions so don’t try this at home) and tried extinguishing them with different types of fire extinguishers. Thankfully the vast majority of homeowners never have cause to discharge an extinguisher but consequently they have little idea as to their impact.

Class A fires involving combustible solids like paper, fabrics and wood and Class F cooking fires are by far the most common in a home environment so featured high on our test list. Assessing the results of the tests It was clear to me that the best extinguishers to have for combatting Class A fires are the water extinguishers and water additive versions. No doubt water does cause some inconvenience but it does dry out and will cause far less peripheral damage than powder extinguishers. Although the dry powder extinguisher extinguished the fire it sent up a cloud of chemical particles that coated everything within a 5 metre radius requiring a major clean-up operation after use, whereas the water discharge jet was far more targeted and faster acting.

For similar reasons our recommendation for cooking oil fires would by the new ABF foam aerosol extinguisher unless your budget can stretch to a 2 litre wet chemical fire extinguisher.

We also tested a fire blanket on both Class A and Class F fires and I was pleasantly surprised on how easy fire blankets are to deploy and how effective they are at smothering a small fire. Although there was some minor scorching of the fire blanket it was substantially undamaged so we could repack into its protective sleeve for reuse. Next to smoke detectors, I suggest a fire blanket is probably the most cost effective and versatile fire safety device you can get for home and leisure use.

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I spent last weekend helping my daughter and family to move house. As they are renting out the old property before she vacated we had to check that the appropriate fire safety provisions were met in accordance with Health and Safety regulations, including Fire regulations, Gas Safe registration and electrical appliance safety testing.

The house was already fitted with smoke detectors on each floor and a quick press of the test button showed they were in working order. As the house had a gas combi boiler I had already persuaded my daughter to install a Carbon Monoxide alarm as an extra precaution, a provision that impressed the incoming tenants.
When I got to the new house I was happy to see a smoke alarm on the first floor landing and in the dining area adjacent the kitchen exactly where they should be. I was less impressed when I tried the test buttons as both were inoperative. They were quality branded optical smoke alarms and kitemarked to BS5446 but on inspection both batteries were spent. It really is hard to explain how someone could take the trouble to install smoke alarms and then not maintain them.

After a laborious day lifting and shifting we repaired to the pub to wind down and met up with some friends. By coincidence one was relating how he was replacing his electric fire with a wood burner. I commented that as I have an open fire I have to be careful to ensure the flue is swept regularly and ventilation is good otherwise smoke may leak into the living area and trigger false alarms on the detectors.
His response was that his smoke alarm was eating batteries and forever bleeping which is an automatic alarm indicating low battery levels on all BS5446 detectors. His remedy was to take out the batteries. Well either he is either unlucky or he has bought a cheap substandard unit as the batteries in a standard alarm should easily last a year.

The answer is not to disable the single most effective defence against major fire damage and loss of life in the home. I pointed him in the direction of the sealed battery smoke detectors that have a ten year life and can only hope he takes my advice.

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Our fireproof safes are independently Certified in accordance with the industry recognised EN 1047-1, NT Fire 017 and EN15659 quality standards.

EN1047-1 is the principal standard for burglary protection which defines a range of security classifications from Grade 0 to Class VI with Class VI giving the highest level of security from burglary attack. From an insurance standpoint it is vitally important to ensure you choose the correct level of security consistent with the value and type of contents to be stored. Generally if cash is to be secured choose the Grade of safe consistent with the maximum amount of cash held. The amount of valuables insured, such as jewellery is normally 10 times the designated cash rating. Where a safe is awarded a certificate to EN 1047-1 details can normally be found on a plate inside the safe door.

Valid test certificates to EN 1047-1 are widely recognised by the insurance industry although you should be aware that any safes carrying a Grade for burglary protection that weigh below 1000kg must be properly anchored to the floor and /or wall, otherwise your insurer may invalidate any claim. So when choosing a safe in this category make sure it has floor and wall bolt down capability.

In addition to burglary protection additional Approvals to NT Fire 017 and EN15659 are Certificates awarded to safes for fire resistance and differ in several respects.
In a fire event Fireproof data safes for Digital Media including CDs, DVDs, back-up tapes, etc. are required to prevent the internal temperature exceeding 52 degrees C and the internal humidity exceeding 85% above which the sensitive media will degrade.

A Fire Safe for protecting documents is required to limit the internal temperature at below 177 degrees C above which paper will ignite. Although you can safely store paper alongside digital media in a Datasafe storing digital media in a Fireproof Data Safe may not protect it in the event of a fire.
Fire security Certificates given for compliance to NT Fire 017 and EN15659 are also given ratings according to the duration of fire protection afforded typically from 30 minutes up to two hours.

You should also be very careful when choosing a security safe that carries a burglary protection certificate that the lock used has also have been certified as offering an equivalent degree of protection in respect of the relevant EN 1300 performance standard. If not, then the safe’s burglary protection certificate may be rendered invalid by your insurer.

If you are in any doubt on which safe you need talk to our specialist advisors.

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Browsing through the daily fire safety and security news, I noticed, amongst the all too frequent reports of businesses being fined for inadequate Fire Risk Assessments, a report that ASDA had been forced to apologise for selling its chip pans. Apologise to whom you might well ask. Well apparently Asda chose to highlight its bargain price £12 chip pan in its latest edition of Asda magazine. Given that national chip week – yes we do have a national chip week – will be held between the 20th and 26th February this seemed a canny marketing ploy by Asda, and to me, as it happens.

My local South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue (SYFR) were reportedly “outraged” by the promotion, pointing out the 100 accidental chip pan related house fires attended on average each year. This does not seem too bad a record given South Yorkshires 1.3million residents.

Householders need to be aware of the fire risks associated with cooking and cooking appliances. In the UK in 2010/11 cooking appliances were the biggest cause of accidental fire, with nearly 20,000 fires reported but fires caused by smoking materials resulted in by far the greatest number of fatalities.
Asda however, chose to apologise unreservedly and gave their word that chip pans would never be promoted again. Customers will no doubt be encouraged to believe chip pans no longer exist.

SYFR however, are unequivocal: “Oven chips or thermostat controlled fryers are much safer, meaning there is no need whatsoever for people to continue putting their lives at risk.”

For the people who cannot afford a thermostat controlled fryer and continue to use a chip pan why not buy a fire blanket to provide instant and proven fire protection if the user does by chance set fire to the chip pan. In addition the fire blanket is also on hand to suffocate any other accidental home fires including smoker’s materials.

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Although the history of the modern canister type fire extinguisher dates back to the early 19th Century, Wet chemical fire extinguishers are very much the baby of the brood. British Standard 7937 was first published in the year 2000 and gives detailed specifications for portable fire extinguishers for use on cooking oil fires together with the establishment of a new Class F rating for extinguishers of this type.

Previous to the development of Class F fire extinguishers there was no satisfactory fire extinguisher alternative that could deal effectively with cooking fat fires which is a general term for any animal fats and vegetable oils like rapeseed, sunflower, palm and olive oil used in cooking.

Be aware that there are different types of “chemical” fire extinguisher that involve some kind of chemical reaction to suppress a fire, dry powders for example, but it is important to realise that only wet chemical extinguishers are effective on cooking fats and that no other type of extinguisher is approved for a cooking oil fire. The Class F extinguishers contain a “Wet Chemical”, typically potassium acetate, carbonate, or citrate that reacts with the fats through a process called saponification to form a soapy foam that smothers the fire. The chemical reaction is also endothermic i.e. it absorbs heat so lowering the surface temperature of the oil to prevent re-ignition.

Owners and operators of food processing and commercial catering and retail food outlets should be aware that you must provide a Class F fire extinguishers in any commercial premises having fryers containing more than three litres of cooking oil, as a legal requirement of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. When it comes to buying a wet chemical extinguisher you should also ensure it conforms to British Standard BS7937-2000 and is CE marked if you want to satisfy a visiting Fire Safety Officer.

Class F fire extinguishers in common with other types of fire extinguisher have fire ratings according to their filled capacity to help you choose an extinguisher appropriate to the fire risk. The ratings on Class F extinguishers vary from 15F to 75F which as a rough guide you can translate in terms of the maximum number of litres of oil contained in any one fat fryer,  e.g. a 75F rating equates to 75 litres of oil and requires a 6 litre wet chemical extinguisher to cover the risk.

Even more recently a multi-purpose Class ABF foam extinguisher has been introduced as a cost effective alternative for home and leisure use and in small mobile type food outlets. These use a foam additive solution rather than a potassium based wet chemical and can also be used on solid combustibles and petroleum liquid fires. It is horses for courses when it comes to making your choice but if your fire risk is primarily safeguarding cooking fires be aware that a typical 2 litre Wet Chemical is 60% more effective than the equivalent sized ABF extinguisher.

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Fire proof filing cabinets have a key role to play in many businesses despite today’s digital age where we are constantly bombarded with requests to move to paperless transactions including e-billing and text communications. The need to store paper based files and business critical documents securely is a must have for many businesses but their protection against the impact of a fire is often overlooked.

The common or garden filing cabinet is often used to store Contracts, deeds, confidential company records, financial and personnel reports and other sensitive business papers but the security of the contents is limited to preventing unauthorised access and offers little or no protection if a fire should break out on the premises.

The key difference with Fire resistant filing cabinets is that they are designed and independently tested to prevent the internal temperature of the cabinets from reaching the self-ignition temperature of paper for up to two hours. This is almost certainly enough time for the fire service to attend and bring the fire under control. Paper can self-ignite at just 177 degrees Celsius whereas an average fire will burn at upwards of 600 degrees. As steel is a good conductor of heat the temperature in a standard single skin file cabinet will rise very quickly and even though the cabinet itself may remain largely intact any paper contents will be totally destroyed.

Fire filing cabinets also offer far greater security against unauthorised access as well as protection against file fires. Sophisticated digital locks, fire safe quality locking bolts and selective draw by draw access controls allow complete security access management. On many models each drawer is independently protected for fire proof filing so documents are protected in the event a drawer is left open during a fire incident.

Taking a value approach to fire risk assessment should include a review of the impact on your business of losing valuable and sensitive documents and files to fire. It is almost certain that the business benefits of an investment in a fire proof file cabinet will far outweigh the cost and will ensure your business can function effectively in the immediate aftermath of a fire.

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Ask the average person in the street what a fire extinguisher contains and the odds are water extinguishers will come top of the list. The problem is that although water has been used to extinguish fires for millennia the types of fire a water extinguisher can tackle are very limited particularly in a home or office environment. These limitations are not widely appreciated by the general public who mistakenly see water as a catch all solution for fire fighting.

In practice water extinguishers should only be used for tackling fires involving common combustible materials like wood, paper and similar solids collectively termed Class A fuels by fire safety professionals. However there are some fairly common solids specifically metals like magnesium, aluminium and sodium that water will not extinguish effectively although fortunately such fires are rarely encountered outside specialist manufacturing facilities.

More common are fires involving flammable liquids like petrol and oil. Using a water fire extinguisher on such fires is a useless endeavor and potentially dangerous. Burning liquids will simply float on the water, as the water runs off it carries the fuel with it spreading the flames further. Similarly water fire extinguishers have no effect on burning flammable gases like butane propane and natural gas as the water molecules are too large to displace the air borne oxygen supporting the combustion process. It is for this reason that fires on oil rigs are so difficult to extinguish even though they are literally surrounded by water. At best applying water will merely prevent fire spread in the solid structure.

Also common in the home and at work are fires in electrical equipment from televisions and cookers to computers and photocopiers. Once again using a water fire extinguisher has some major drawbacks. Firstly if it is not possible to turn off the power, or more likely, if in the heat of the moment (pardon the pun) you forget to do so, then selecting the red labeled water extinguisher from the fire point is to put your life at risk. The water will quite probable suppress or even extinguish the fire but it is also a great conductor of electricity. The continuous jet of water between the extinguisher in your hands and the target fire connects you to the electricity coursing through the equipment. End result electrocution!

Even if you have the presence of mind to switch off the power applying water to electrical equipment you will further damage circuitry and electronics and may contaminate other equipment like your digital box or a printer not directly involved in the fire making the chances of repair minimal and the asset losses greater.

You should also be wary of using water extinguishers in the kitchen environment. Spraying a burning cooking pan with a high pressure jet of water is a recipe for disaster. For one the water jet will likely splatter and spray the burning fats around the kitchen spreading the fire. Secondly however hard you try the water will not extinguish the fire as like petrol the fat will just float on top, the pan will overflow further and the fire will spread.

When used for common Class A type fires water outshines any other type of extinguisher for economy and efficiency but knowing its limitations will ensure the safety of you, your family and work colleagues.

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Powder extinguishers also known as Dry Chemical and Dry Powder fire extinguishers are widely available and commonly found in virtually every business premises. What is possibly not widely appreciated is that Dry Powder is a catch all description for a group of fire extinguishers that use different types of chemicals each of which have different fire fighting capabilities. To simply purchase one of the many dry powder extinguishers available at discount prices all over the web simply based on the generic name could be a costly mistake if you choose the wrong Dry Powder.

The commonest misconception is that a multipurpose ABC Dry Powder for use on Class A, B and C fires is somehow just an upgraded BC Powder extinguishers.

A class BC extinguisher contains Sodium Bicarbonate and came into use in the late 1920′s to tackle flammable liquids and gases now called Class B and Class C fire respectively. They could also be described as the first Carbon Dioxide extinguisher as in the heat of the fire the Sodium Bicarbonate undergoes a chemical reaction that produces a cloud of carbon dioxide that drives off the oxygen smothering the flames.

Just like actual Co2 extinguishers it is not reliably effective on Class A fires involving solid combustibles as once the gas dissipates and the air oxygen returns the retained heat in the fuel can cause re-ignition. Flammable liquids and pressurised flammable gases retain little heat so do not re-ignite.

ABC fire extinguishers on the other hand contain ammonium sulphate. They are effective on solid combustibles because the heat of the fire causes the powdered chemical to melt even at a relatively low temperature. The effect is to smother the fire and form a continuous barrier layer preventing oxygen reaching the fuel.

Generally a BC rated extinguisher will outperform a multipurpose ABC of the same size on flammable liquids and gases.

Another fire extinguisher powder to look out for is Potassium Bicarbonate which has double the fire fighting capacity of sodium bicarbonate on Class B flammable liquids. Potassium Bicarbonate and Urea Complex is better known, in the UK at least as Monnex Dry Powder. Its superior performance makes it the extinguisher of choice for the oil and gas industry and interestingly in motor sports such as Formula 1 due to its ability to knock down high octane fuel fires. In the heat of the fire the Monnex powder fragments into smaller particles creating a larger surface area for free radical inhibition a process that should really be viewed as the fourth element of a fire tetrahedron together with the Oxygen, Fuel and Heat we associate with the Fire Triangle. Again Monnex is not effective on Class A fires.

So when choosing Powder Extinguishers make sure you assess the fire risk you are trying to safeguard and choose the extinguisher best suited to the task.

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