Back to articles

Fire can put an end to small businesses if they are not controlled and you should therefore take all the necessary precautions to prevent such an incident from happening. All individual threats should be identified in your risk assessment but fire can be caused through a ‘knock-on’ effect of poor electrical safety precautions.

It is important that you isolate the individual threats of fire by training your staff to deal with each case of fire. This will include fighting electrical and chemical fires as well as the general fires. In which case, you should provide the necessary equipment that is needed to battle fires including blankets, extinguishers, and possibly axes.

Fire extinguishers come in different sizes and more importantly, different types to put out different classes of fire:

Class A fires
These are combustibles such as wood, paper, general furniture, etc and can be put out with an extinguisher that consists of either pressurized water or foam.

Class B fires
These include fires caused by flammable liquids or gases. In which case, you have to eliminate the oxygen to prevent the liquid or gas from further reaching the ignition source. Such extinguishers contain either carbon dioxide or dry chemicals (powder).

Class C fires
These are fires caused by electrical equipment and therefore it is important that the element used to put out the fire is a non-electrical conductor. You should never use water to put out electrical fires. The correct extinguisher to use would consist of carbon dioxide or dry chemicals (powder).

All extinguishers are classed and correlate to the type of fire that they can be used for. Some extinguishers may have, say, a B/C class meaning that they can be used for both flammable liquid (class B fire) and electrical fires (class C fire).

It is important that you maintain your fire equipment and have it regularly checked by a fire authority (e.g. the fire brigade) to make sure they are in constant working order.

Aside from the use of equipment, your employees should be trained on how to evacuate the premises as quick and safely as possible. This will require you to make sure that fire escapes are clear at all times.

Check out our range of Fire Extinugishers for all types of fire and Fire Blanket