Fire Extenguisher

What do the different classes of fires mean? Not a critique of the write-up, just curious.

http://www.stopfire.com.cy/stopfire/Ima ... lasses.gif

or

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_classes

Trying to find a better image now. But basically fire class has to deal with the type of material that is on fire and how the fire will react to an extinguisher.

A is cloth, B is liquids, C is gasses, D is metals, and this varies a bit based on the system you are using. The reason you want to know this is that certain fire extinguishers are not rated to put out all kinds of fires. For example water is good for cloth fires, but it doesn't work well against gasses. Water/Foam mixtures work well against cloth too but they are ineffective and highly dangerous to use on liquids because they will splash against oil/fat/whathaveyou and spread the fire around! Trying to use water/foam types to put out an electrical fire could also have similar disastrous results.

This uses a dry powder which is rated for all types of fires. Naturally dry powders smother, absorb liquids, and aren't conductive, so they make great extinguishing agents.

This is a good thing to know, as your KFY fire fighting systems could result in vastly increased ship damage if used on the wrong type of fire.

Edit: Added wiki link to wikipedia fire classes page

So this is a real-life thing, not SARP specific; interesting. Thanks for the links.

Shouldn't this article mention the contents of the extinguisher being called something like Cooldust Industrial?

Just a quick drive-by note: it's spelled extinguisher, not extenguisher.

I had originally used extinguishing powder - mechanical, but cooldust works better.

Also, fixing spelling now.