subject: Proper Placement Of The Automatic Fire Extinguisher [print this page] There are many different ways to prevent fire but a few ways to fight it. This means that it is practical for safety as well as for legal reasons to be prepared to fight fire. The United Kingdom is well-known as a fire prone country, and this is probably why the Fire Safety Order (FSO) was ratified in 2006 to combat this problem. I have experienced handling commercial areas as a property manager for several years, and I have spent quite some time, focus and budget consulting with fire engineers, fire consulting companies and the like to make sure that our places are as fire proof as possible. One of the interesting items that came up for one of our properties was for a factory that mixed certain chemicals together for mass production. This is the automatic fire extinguisher.
What is basically, unlike the manual fire extinguishers we commonly see stored in fire extinguisher cabinets is that it is placed out in the open workplace. When it's thermometer reads up to a certain temperature, it releases its chemical designed to put our fires in a small area. Now this may seem impractical to some, but it is useful when the area is fire prone even when people aren't around to cause them to happen. This is very particular in the case of this client we had - the factory stores chemicals during non working hours. While they do employ satisfactory safety measures, it is still necessary in my opinion to have that added peace of mind. Thus, an automatic fire extinguisher is assigned to each of these fire prone areas. Proper placement of these isn't exactly hard or complicated though best done with professional advice. As a rule of thumb and common sense, you place them in areas where there is constant operation of heat producing heavy equipment. ANY electrical appliance actually, whether a heavy duty generator or a portable laptop is prone ot overheating and therefore, burning up. Keep out of range of the fire extinguisher cabinets containing manual fire extinguishers, as people may need to access it. Also, make sure it it out of range of any position where a person would usually be isolated. Putting an automatic fire extinguisher in an office cubicle would be plain stupidity.
Of course I'm not here to go into specifics, since that would and should be up to the experts - in particular your local fire station and a reputable fire safety equipment dealer. Also, prevention as mentioned is always the better option but preparedness in all possible situations is best. Whether you are looking for safety for your heavy equipment or you want to install fire extinguisher cabinets for employee use, consult the experts as they will always give the best advice. Placement of these automatic fire extinguishers is a no brainer but at the same time, it is also quite a big deal especially is you want to protect your investments, assets and most importantly the lives of the laborers in your establishment.
