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Oxygen, heat, and fuel are frequently referred
to as the "fire triangle."
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The Fire Triangle In
order to understand how fire extinguishers work, you first
need to know a little bit about first
Four things must be present at the same time in order to
produce fire :
Enough oxygen to sustain combustion,
Enough heat to raise the material to its ignition
temperature,
Some sort of fuel or combustible material, and
The chemical, exothermic reaction that is fire
Add in the fourth element, the chemical
reaction, and you actually have a fire "tetrahedron." The
important thing to remember is : take any of these four
things away, and you will not have a fire or the fire will
be extinguished.
Essentially, fire extinguishers put
out fire by taking away one or more elements of the fire
triangle / tetrahedron. Fire safety, at its most basic,
is based upon the principle of keeping fuel sources and
ignition sources separate. |
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Classification of Fuels
Not all fires are the same, and they are
classified according to the type of fuel that is burning. If
you use the wrong type of fire extinguisher on the wrong
class of fire, you can, in fact, make matters worse. It is
therefore very important to understand the four different
fire classifications |
