Fire Protection Systems: Understanding How to Protect Your Child

Published by cravat | Filed under Buyer / Seller Tips, Miscellaneous

Fire protection systems are supposed to protect you and your family. Unfortunately, there are instances wherein the system that should be protecting you ends up harming you.

For example, are you quite familiar with extinguishing agents? There are a lot of different extinguishing agents currently available in the market, and deciding which ones to use can be rather difficult. After all, there are specific agents that are most efficient to combat different classes of fire.

One fire extinguishing agent that was used extensively in the past but later revealed to be harmful is carbon tetrachloride. It was a very efficient extinguishing agent, but later studies revealed it to have harmful side effects.

Another example is Halon, which was one of the most popular clean agents for some time. Further studies showed that although efficient, it was harmful to both human health and the ozone layer.

Finally, one should know that even the usually harmless carbon dioxide could be deadly in concentrated form and within a confined space. It can lead to suffocation.

It’s important to know that your choice of fire protection system could have serious impact on your family’s health. In the event of a fire, a fire extinguisher that contains harmful chemicals could end up causing you and your family more harm.

But don’t worry. There are child and family friendly options out in the market, thanks to extensive and unrelenting research. These systems rely on inert gas fire suppression in order to protect your home and your family. In a nutshell, inert gas systems make use of passive agents that are not harmful to your children or the environment.

Two of the most common agents used in inert gas systems are Argonite and Inergen. Neither of these two gases actually interacts with the fire directly. Instead, an inert gas fire suppression system works by lowering the oxygen content of the area, thereby destroying the fire at its core. It deprives the fire of the oxygen for combustion, leading to its extinction.

Inert gas systems use passive agents that have no harmful side effects. Argonite and Inergen are both safe to use and are proven to have no adverse effects on global warming. More importantly, these two agents found in inert gas fire suppression systems are safe to use even inside your home, as they have no negative side effects on human health.

But more than just knowing what extinguishing agent works best to keep your fire protection system child-friendly, it’s also important to realize that the user has a lot of responsibilities as well. It’s not enough that you get a safe fire extinguisher.

A little knowledge is dangerous. It’s important that you recognize the fact that certain extinguishing agents cannot be used in certain situations. In a Class C fire with electrical problems, you are not supposed to use a water-based fire extinguisher. Also, using the wrong dry chemical fire extinguisher in a laboratory filled with chemicals can lead to an even more toxic combination.

Basically, creating a child-friendly protection system is not just about what you use, but also about how you use it.