Choosing Fire Extinguishers

Identifying type of materials

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Class A: SOLIDS such as paper, wood, plastic etc

Class B: FLAMMABLE LIQUIDS such as paraffin, petrol, oil etc

Class C: FLAMMABLE GASES such as propane, butane, methane etc

Class D: METALS such as aluminium, magnesium, titanium etc

Class E: Fires involving ELECTRICAL APPARATUS

Class F: Cooking OIL & FAT etc

Colour Coding

Prior to 1st Jan 1997, the code of practice for fire extinguishers in the UK was BS 5423, which advised the colour coding of fire extinguishers as follows:

Water - Red

Foam - Cream

Dry Powder - Blue

Carbon Dioxide (CO2) - Black

Halon - Green (now 'illegal' except for a few exceptions such as the Police, Armed Services and Aircraft).

New extinguishers should conform to BS EN 3, which requires that the entire body of the extinguisher be coloured red. A zone of colour of up to 5% of the external area can be used to identify the contents using the old colour coding shown above.