Hello my name is Pete Lattanzio, and I'm a fire safety consultant and I've
been in the fire safety industry for a long time.
Fire has changed drastically over the years and it's basically was what
because of what we're bringing into our our homes and our businesses today. A lot
of our materials in our homes and our businesses are petroleum-based- foam
rubbers, plastics, synthetic materials. They're all petroleum-based, therefore
fires burn much faster today and they burn much hotter and they're producing a
lot of very toxic gases that are that are off-gassed during a fire that are very
toxic for folks to breathe in. Life safety again is the most important. We
can replace buildings, we can't replace the people that are in it. So getting
people out is the most important thing but there are those rare occasions where
an incident may occur and you might want to especially for life safety purposes
either to get yourself out or to get somebody you're caring for to get them
out, you might want to use a fire extinguisher.
This is a typical fire extinguisher that we find in commercial businesses and in
programs such as where you are. This is an all-purpose fire extinguisher.
If you look at the extinguisher, it actually has pictograms on the front. And
down here below it talks about the "A, B, C": the combustible papers, the wood, the
flammable liquids, the electrical fires. So you want to familiarize
yourself to make sure that at your facility you have an ABC extinguisher.
There are other extinguishers that are out there but they're done for specific
hazards, but this is what you should typically see in one of your facilities.
So up above the classifications, there's another set of pictograms and an
explanation of exactly how to use the extinguisher. So we don't expect people
to remember this like you remember your ABCs from school, you don't use these
very often, so this is just a quick reminder of how to use the extinguisher.
On the gauge, we have a green section right in the center and there's a little
yellow indicator, a little yellow arrow. We want to see that yellow arrow up into
the green. This is telling us that this extinguisher has been properly charged
and it's ready to go. If you ever happen to glance down and see this arrow off to
this side of the gauge, it's telling us that either the extinguisher has been
used or the for some reason there's been a pressure leak and this extinguisher's
not gonna function the way it's designed. These hang on the wall all the time, we
never think about them. The fire extinguisher company by code has to come
through once a year and maintain them. But the other thing I like to tell
people to do is periodically take the extinguisher off, tip it upside down and
shake it because what it helps do is it helps keep that powder suspended
inside the extinguisher. Over a period of time if it's not fluffed as they refer
to it, is the powder can have a settling effect and it may not work
properly. So we want to shake these extinguishers periodically, just turn
them upside down and give them a good shake. There is a pin in the top of this
and it's held in with a little plastic tab. I can hold this extinguisher by this
bottom handle and there's no problem with it, it's not going to activate, it
won't discharge. Even as long as the pin's in place, I can squeeze both handles
together and nothing's going to happen. But once I pull that pin out (and we'll
demonstrate that in just a few minutes) once I pull the pin out, that top handle
is now allowed to squeeze down to the bottom handle and it'll discharge the
product. Okay this extinguisher is a little bit smaller, same premise though.
It's got the cylinder, it's gonna hold product. It's got the handle and it's got
the nozzle on it but this one has a fixed nozzle to it. So instead of having
the ability to use the hose and to aim it probably a little bit better, this
one's a much smaller product with that fixed nozzle. They're both going to do
the same job, this one the bigger one just gives you
a little bit more flexibility. One of the big things I want you to understand is
there's a limited amount of product in both of these extinguishers. So this is
not something that's going to last for a long period of time. You're probably
looking, once you start to discharge this, anywhere from 2 to 5 minutes for all the
product in these cylinders to be empty. So this is not a a product or appliance
that you're going to continue to use and think that you're gonna have a long
amount of time. This is a down-and-dirty, you can knock the fire down to the best
of your ability to get yourself or get somebody else out of the way, and then
you abandon these and get out and let the fire department handle the rest.
Using a fire extinguisher, there's an acronym it's called "P.A.S.S" (p-a-s-s), and it's
a very common acronym that's used throughout the fire safety industry and
it basically stands for "pull the pin, aim, squeeze the handle, and sweep. And I'm
going to demonstrate all those sections for you. So as we mentioned before, the
extinguishers come through, the pin is in place, I can hold the handles, nothing's
going to happen. But the minute I pull this pin out I now have the ability to
squeeze the handles together to activate it. These have a plastic safety tab in
place to help ensure that that pin stays in place all the time. So when I have to
use the extinguisher I want to pull and that plastic tab will break right
away very easily. So now this extinguisher is ready for activation.
So we've discovered a fire. Obviously if you have the ability to get out, you
don't have to do anything. Get out of the building, get away from the incident. But
if you have to get past the fire or somebody's trapped and you want to get
to them quickly, you can use the fire extinguisher to do that. We have a piece
of paper laying over on the ground that's going to simulate where the fire
is. Now there's a couple important things to remember when using a fire
extinguisher. Number one - distance. You need to be at least 6 to 10 feet away
from the fire. If you're too close, you can actually cause the fire to get worse.
You can blow the fire around. So you want to be that 6 to 10 feet away from the
fire itself. So the fire is to the front of me, I've grabbed my extinguisher. I'm
going to use that P.A.S.S. method. I'm gonna pull the pin, I'm gonna pull the nozzle
out and aim the nozzle. I'm gonna sweep or squeeze the handles together and then
I'm gonna sweep it back and forth at the base of the fire.
So today we've given you a little bit of an idea how to use these extinguishers. I
hope that you never ever have to use it but if you do, I hope there's a little
bit of a comfort factor there for you that you can do this, you can do it
successfully and you know, hopefully prevent somebody from getting injured or
dying in a fire. Thank you very much.