Boat Fire Extinguisher

Boat Fire Extinguisher Information

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About Boat Fire Extinguishers

Fire safety on boats is of paramount importance, because a fire that is allowed to spread or which goes undetected can spell disaster for those on board. Not only is it very important to have the appropriate fire fighting equipment in your vessel but you must also ensure that it is located in the right places and properly maintained in good working order.

Boat fire extinguishers must be easily accessible, distributed around your vessel next to the main escape routes and mounted in such as way as to not require anyone to reach across a cooking appliance.

The most common form of boat fire extinguisher is a dry powder type, which is extremely versatile, being safe on classes A, B and C fires as well as electrical fires. The first thing you need to check is how many appliances you require and what rating these need to be. Every appliance has to have a fire extinguisher class or rating, and this tells you the type of fire it can be used on and how big a fire it is capable of dealing with.

The numerical part of the appliance rating gives a reliable indication of the size of fire that the appliance can deal with. The larger the number the more fire it can extinguish. There are set requirements that you have to meet in terms of providing appliances for a small vessel. These relate to the length of the boat and the total rating of the extinguishers.

How Many Boat Fire Extinguishers Do You Need?

The requirement for provision of boat fire extinguishers is as follows:

Vessel Length: Up to 7m
Minimum of 2 boat fire extinguishers required
Minimum combined rating of appliances 10A/68B

Vessel Length: 7m to 11m
Minimum of 2 boat fire extinguishers required
Minimum combined rating of appliances 13A/89B

Boat Length: Over 11m
Minimum of 3 boat fire extinguishers required
Minimum combined rating of appliances 21A/144B

As well as meeting the combined ratings shown, each individual boat fire extinguisher must have a rating of not less than 5A/34B.

In addition to extinguishers, you should also have a fire blanket if there are any areas with cooking facilities. This will need to comply with BS EN 1869:1997 to be of the appropriate standard.

Automatic Boat Fire Extinguishers

Depending on the nature and use of your vessel, there is an argument that automatic boat fire extinguishers are a better option. In terms of absolute safety, there is not doubt that this is the safest option, because automatic extinguishers can put a fire out before you even know if has started.

Automatic boat fire extinguishers are usually the same as ordinary ones, except that the handle that would normally be used to manually activate the appliance is replaced with a glass bulb. This contains heat sensitive liquid which will expand if the temperature increases, and at a certain point if will break and activate the extinguisher.

A special sprinkler head then disperses the contents, which is usually either powder or a gas (the gas being less messy and less damaging to sensitive equipment). While old extinguishers used to use Halon gas, this is now banned and there are effective extinguishing agents available that are environmentally friendly and do not have any ozone depleting action.

Automatic boat fire extinguishers can be particularly useful in confined spaces such as engine rooms and other areas with machinery. The other alternative is specially built automatic fire suppression system, though this is of course much more expensive and requires specialist installation.

Advice On Provision Of Boat Fire Extinguishers