Fire Equipment

Fire safety at home, what to have around in case of emergency

It doesn’t matter where we work or live, any place we spend our time must besafe; many people think that since they spend their lives in offices which have many technologic devices their security is guaranteed; we must state that this kind of thinking is incorrect. There are many cases of fire disasters, elevators that don’t work properly, a gas leak, etc; all these facts turn each building into a dangerous place; not even a kindergarten is safe anymore. The main problem that involves security here is the lack of responsibility of each organism, company, association or school. Any of theses entities counts with a fire equipment, and that is crucial to guarantee the physic integrity of each individual. But what is a fire equipment and what is it for?, most of the time whenever we talk about fire equipments people think we’re only referring to extinguishers, but a fire equipment has more components. Is true that the extinguishers are the most used apparatus at the time of fighting the fire; this device contains several chemicals which can be discharged quickly to fight small fire, turning it down eventually. The agents that the chemistry has are in charge of keeping the fire down by removing the three main flame components: fuel, heat and oxygen, also known as fire triangle.

With the use of this fire equipment we cool the fuel producing at the same time a barrier between the fuel and the oxygen, in this way we break the triangle and the fire fades away; in case we don’t have a fire extinguisher near we can use other sources such us water, chemical foam, halon, dry powder, among others, but we must remember that these elements can’t fight any type of fire, just the small ones. The first fire equipments for emergencies consisted only in bottles with water, nobody could find an effective way of fighting the fire, just with water, but as the time passed by, many scientists started studying the different reactions that the fire had when they mixed it with chemical substances. In that way the extinguishers were invented; the first one was only a pressurized vessel which spewed forth water, later they decided to innovate a bit more and mixed liquid elements with water. With the time most of these fire equipments incorporated a vessel of sulphuric acid on the top of the device which made it to be turned upside down to be used. In this way the acid and the bicarbonate solution got chemically mixed and effective to eliminate the fire.

Fire extinguishers not enough

But as we said before, fire extinguishers are not the only elements that compose a fire equipment, we also have axes, ladders, pikes poles, etc; they are crucial in case we need to break a door with the purpose of escaping from the fire. The axe could have many uses and could save many peoples lives, they are very practical since they don’t only defend us from the fire but also from any other difficult situation we could live inside our building. The ladder is not, perhaps, the most used element in a fire incident but it could be helpful if we need to help someone who is on top of us and elevators don’t work. Although we don’t give much importance to this subject we can’t leave our security behind; governments of thousands of countries order to place at least a fire extinguisher in strategic places of each building. The fire equipment is compulsory for every office, school or shop; in fact the most recommended here is to have at least a small fire equipment since, sometimes, the extinguishers are not enough to fight the fire.

Houses are also supposed to count with an updated fire equipment, theses places are the most vulnerable since we live domestic accidents everyday, in the last 10 years 12 accidents a day were registered only in European countries and 10% of them were fatal since the houses didn’t have a fire equipment. Accidents may occur everywhere, in our place, school, office even in open areas that’s why we need to be prepared and not only carry a fire equipment composed by a fire extinguisher. The use of axes and ladders can save our lives although we ignore it, these tools are crucial if we are trapped in a room set on fire and the extinguishers are not enough to eliminate the fire; our fire equipment can also consist of knives, hammers, blankets to keep the fire down, big bottles of water, etc. As a piece of advice, we recommend people not to place inflammable objects near the fire, specially in the kitchen, we can prevent fire incidents in this way; at the same time, the fire extinguishers must be placed in those areas where the risk of fire is higher, and you must remember to verify and keep the charge.