Last night saw the oven/grill catch fire - due frankly, to it needing a clean and we were in a rush. We don't normally let it get like that but did on this occasion. Fortunately is extingushed itself in a few seconds but I got to looking around to see what we needed in the case of a real kitchen fire.
First off, there is polystyrene coving on the ceiling about the cooker (put there by previous owner) so that'll have to go.
Then I though maybe it's worth getting a fire blanket - the kind that lives in a cylinder and has tapes to put 'n throw.
Maybe fire "proof"/resistant paint on the ceiling there is a good idea? It's been painted recently with paint "for use in kitchens" - but I think that just means it doesn't flake from heat/condensation etc
Finally a fire extingushed. Wifey says she's heard of a new kind available that turns "fat to soap". Anyone know what it's called and who may sell such a thing?
Special use wet chemical. Very expensive. Very effective. More likely to be found in a chip shop.
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good type to have in a kitchen is ABC powder. Don't buy a diddy 1 litre one for 25GBP in a shed. Get a 6kg for about 40GBP online. That will actually put out a contained fire, such as a dustbin. An alternative is AFFF foam, although powder is probably superior. Avoid water and CO2 for kitchens.
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?section=1&category=2&item=5Get some training on how to use them. Without training (and usually with training too), their most effective use is to smash windows. The best plan is almost always to get out and leave firefighting to the experts. However, they can be useful in the initial stages of a contained fire, if you know what you're doing and have already initiated the evacuation.
Probably the most important thing to remember about fire safety after smoke alarms is teaching children an escape plan. The most important element of this is teaching them not to hide. It is instinctive for young children to hide in wardrobes in a fire, which is a death sentence. They must be told to run for a door, and if no doors are available, to go to a room with a window, shut the door and scream from the window.
What type, though? Best is to have mains interlinked battery backup smoke alarms through the entire house, except near the kitchen, which should have a heat sensor mounted on the ceiling. This gives an effective alarm with pretty much zero false alarms. An alarm which goes off every breakfast is in chocolate teapot territory.
Also, make sure you have a kitchen door which closes. If you give up trying to extinguish a fire, closing the door as you leave will help reduce damage to rest of house. Even if you do extinguish a fire, closing the door will help reduce the stench which will infect the rest of the house.
Fire blanket is the ideal thing to have if you do any frying (shallow or deep fat). You don't throw it on, you hold it up by the tapes/corners to shield you as you approch the pan and then lay it over the top. Practice with it (without a fire) before you need to use it for real. If you ever get the opportunity to go on a proper fire training course at work where you will put out such fires for real, leap at the chance.
Not heard of that. (Soap is mostly fat anyway, which is why mice eat it.) A dry powder extinguisher is the only type I would consider in a kitchen. Water or CO2 would be dangerous to use and far more likely to make any kitchen fire worse. However, a fire extinguisher is almost completely useless unless you have been trained to use it. In untrained hands, they are often only worth attempting to use if you need to do so to save your life, e.g. to make an escape route viable -- that seems like an unlikely scenario in a kitchen.
Aye. If the fire is big enough to warrant an extinguisher you really don't want to be there. Get Out, Stay Out etc
I wouldn't bother with an extinguisher for a kitchen. A fire blanket could be useful if some one sets themselves alight. The average kitchen doesn't have enough space to roll over and over in.
Small pan based fat fires are easyly dealt with by putting the lid on, turning off the heat and leaving for half an hour to cool. Grill pans with a *DAMP*, not dripping, tea towel. Remember to half wrap the towel around your hands/fore arms to protect them as you place it over the fire. Do this by holding the far corners of the towel and twisting your hands inwards. Once on leave to cool.
I posted a link for something close to that (42+VAT).
I did actually pay 40GBP, including VAT, for a 6kg ABC but can't remember the supplier. I also got a 9L AFFF and fire blanket for very good prices, too.
You don't throw them - you hold the tapes such that the blanket covers your hands and arms and place it over the pan. Your local fire service will demonstrate how to use them if you ask.
NO - DO NOT have a fire extinguisher unless it is a Aqueous Film Forming Foam (AFFF) Class F type with a slow discharge. There was a domestic one produced just for oil pan fires but the company has disappeared and there doesn't appear to be one on the market now. Dry powder is deadly on a chip pan fire - it doesn't cool the oil and the blast of propellant throws blazing oil everywhere. For this reason a kitchen should not have a fire extinguisher in it - someone will try to use it one day.
To prevent chip pan fires use an electric deep frier.
No it isn't - it is the perfect way of turning a small fire into a conflagration. Dry powder will not extinguish burning oil and will scatter it everywhere.
AFFF is far superior to dry powder and the substance in Class F (Oil Fire) extinguishers. If you had a normal domestic spray bottle with AFFF in it it would put out a chip pan fire.
That will certainly get the fire going!
The best plan is _always_ to get out - and stay out.
That is untrue. AFFF is standard foam and should not really be used on chip pans. For that you need special wet chemical foam for Class F fires, which isn't the same as AFFF.
I agree that special wet chemical is the best type for kitchens, as it is also effective on solid fires. However, it costs over 150 quid a pop, so is unlikely to make inroads into the domestic market. It only has an 'A' rating of 13A instead of 27A, so isn't quite so good at solids, though. It has no 'B' rating at all, but this is unlikely to be much of an issue as burning chip pans come under the 'F' rating, where it excels.
ABC is useful in a kitchen for non-chip pan fires, particularly dustbins and toasters. As you say, it is very likely to make a chip pan fire worse unless you're particularly skilled with it. That's what the fire blanket is for.
As we don't even own a chip pan and have had a toaster set itself on fire, I think I'll keep it around!
Actually, the following supplier appears not only substantially cheaper for the real McCoy 6kg, but seem to sell a small domestic wet chemical version that looks like an alternative (or supplement) to the fire blanket.
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's only 15 quid (and 600g), but that should be enough to enclose a chip pan. With a 3A rating, it might even put out a cigarette! However, I'd be worried about how to apply it without disturbing the pan. There appears to be no lance from the picture.
When I had a minor blaze in a (very fortunately metal, solid) wastepaper bucket, I inverted a large frying-pan over it until the fire snuffed itself out.
I then had to ask my cleaner *very* nicely for a new bucket, and colour in the white ring in the carpet with magic-marker.
Fortunately this was before the days of smoke detectors, or the Warden and 349 other students might have found out.
I've done it many times using exactly that - a standard domestic trigger spray and a 10% AFFF solution.
I've also put out many fuel fires with AFFF. I've walked into a burning pan with 5,000 gallons of flaming AVTUR carrying an AFFF spray and walked out again after the supply is exhausted. With dry powder you can walk in but you have to run out very quickly as the second your run out of powder the fire flashes back.
Protein Foam (derived from ox blood) is usually considered as standard foam containing only hydrocarbon surfactants. Fluorocarbon protein foam as used in AFFF is another thing entirely. The difference is in the "Film Forming" part. AFFF covers a fuel surface with a barrier preventing reignition.
The so called "wet chemical" extinguishers use Water, Potassium Acetate (Acetic Acid, as found dilute in Vinegar), Ethylene Gycol (antifreeze) and CO2 (you can see why they hide the cheap ingredients given the price charged for some). Although less effective overall than AFFF they have the distinct advantage in commercial environments of causing no contamination and usually requiring no cleaning afterwards. It is this chemical mix which is sometimes referred to as "turning oil into a soap like substance".
A proper class F extinguisher has a short lance (to keep your hand out of the fire) and a very slow discharge rate so you don't blow the oil out of the pan. Strictly speaking class F only refers to commercial environments - the qualification test is something like a
30kg pan of burning oil which the extinguishing agent must put out, keep out for somewhere between 15 and 30 mins and in doing so splash no oil outside the container. You will find some small household extinguishers loosely referred to as "class F" (because they contain Acetic Acid/Glycol mix) even though they are far too small to put out a 3kg never mind 30kg pan of oil.
When demonstrating chip pan fires the party trick was to go up to one with a tablespoon of AFFF compound and add it to the blazing pan. The fire went out within seconds. The only practical disadvantage of this technique was the need to be wearing full crash gear with fire resistant suit gauntlets and full face helmet to get the spoon over the pan - not something most people use when cooking :-).
"Wet chemical" is cheap, Acetic Acid and Glycol are not exactly expensive chemicals. Manufacturers don't use the correct name so they can vastly overprice Class F extinguishers.
And that is why you should have no fire extinguisher in a kitchen. A chip pan fire is spectacular and if there is an extinguisher handy someone will try to use it with lethal results. I've seen a number of people badly burned using extinguishers on domestic chip pan fires and not a single case where they did any good.
So using a standard AFFF extinguisher sans lance, how do you stop it splashing the pan? I would have thought that it would require considerable skill. The AFFF types I've used seemed to have a very rapid discharge rate that I would be loath to use on a chip pan.
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