Safety - Fire Extinguishers and their purposes

I never realised that fire extinguishers must now all be painted red.

Black, blue, green, cream, all relegated from being the main body colour, to being a little coloured band.

I had a phone chat this evening with an online seller of only fire extinguishers.
I was told that they no longer advise people in homes to use dry powder instead they advise people to use foam.
The main two reasons against using powder are 1) exits can be hard to find and 2) they can cause respiratory problems.

I will be getting foam now.

Are you having a party

Those days are long gone, sad to say .................

Its crap now, 95% of extinguisher bodies are to be red, the other 5% colour coded. You are supposed to recognise what type of extinguisher it is by the type of hose and nozzle!!! Nonsense, the average person on the street doesn't have a clue.

Be careful with foam. Remember its water based and dangerous around electrical appliances. There is a technique to use foam (or AFFF) on electrical sources up to about 440V but I'd not recommend it for the average person. Personally I'd go with a fire blanket in the kitchen and a CO2. CO2 can be used on oil / fuel based fires by rapidly moving the nozzle over the surface of the fire, NOT INTO IT. after place a fire blanket over it as the COs isn't a smothering agent.

If you have a fire else where in the house its probably best to get out quick unless you catch a fire within the first 30 seconds or so. After that the fire is well seated and due to the toxic fumes most furnishing give off these days due to the things they are made off and the fire retardant chemicals in them you'd be overcome by fumes and in all likely hood be unconscious. I believe there are some scary vids on utube, I can't link them as the net nanny at work won't let me. There's a scary on involving a christmas tree.