Fire extinguishers

Sue Dunlap <sdunlap [at] wooster__edu> writes

>We need to equip our special collections area with fire
>extinguisher.  Our safety officer on campus suggested one that uses
>water or one that uses powder.  They apparently weigh about 40 lbs.
>We are concerned about being able to lift and use something this
>heavy.  Also, we wonder about the content of the powder
>extinguishers on the books.  Does anyone have any suggestions of the
>best type of fire extinguisher for a special collections department?

Both water and powder type fire extinguishers will impact on a
collection. CO2 is the cleanest but least efficient in terms of
suppressing a fire. After consulting an animal psychologist I
installed a dual system, based on the capabilities and impact of the
various units.

The first line of defence is CO2 which is placed near a hot spot, or
fire risk area. This is the unit that will be grabbed in a panic. It
will suppress a fire but with limited capacity. When that fails the
next unit back is powder which should control a larger blaze.

Before adopting this I set off a powder unit and spent about 2 weeks
wiping fine white powder off everything in a 330 square metre lab.

Andrew Thorn


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 21:41
                 Distributed: Monday, February 4, 2008
                       Message Id: cdl-21-41-005
                                  ***