What Type of Fire Can Be Put Out Safely With Water? (Overview)

What type of fire can be put out safely with water?

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What type of fire can be put out safely with water?

You can safely use water to put out fire on combustible solids like wood, clothing, fabric, paper, or other (Class A type of fire).

Combustible solids are categorized as Class A fires which include solids like wood, paper, plastic, or other.

For this class of fire, water is effective in extinguishing the fire as it reduces the ignition temperature of the fuel source.

If you do not use enough water, the water boils off and the fuel source continues to burn.

However, fire can be caused by other factors (fuel source) such as flammable liquids (Class B), electricity (Class C), metal (Class D), and cooking liquids (Class K).

These types of fire are not safe to be put out with fire.

In some cases when dealing with metals, if you use water to put off the fire, the heat of the fire will dissociate oxygen and hydrogen molecules of water which will end up fueling further the fire.

Fire Classes

There are five different types of fires. 

Each class of fire is dependent on what fuels them.

Fire typically requires fuel, oxygen, and heat.

Here are the five classes of what fuels fire:

• Class A
• Class B
• Class C
• Class D
• Class K

Class A fires are the ones that many of us are familiar with involving solid materials like paper, clothing, plastic, wood, or others.

Class B fires are fires caused by flammable liquid as opposed to solid materials.

Water does not work on Class B fires and can actually make it worse by spreading the flammable liquid.

Class C fires are electrical in nature.

Using water in this context can be fatal as water is an electric conductor.

Class D fires are rare compared to other types of fire and involve metal ignites.

Metal will typically burn at very high temperatures and some types of metals (like alkali metals) can actually ignite when exposed to water.

Finally, Class K fires are fires caused by cooking liquids and fats.

In some cases, the Class K fire is lumped into Class B.

Fire Extinguishers

There are three different classes of fire extinguishers:

• Class A: combustible solids
• Class B: Flammable liquids
• Class C: Electrical fires

You can use water or Class A fire extinguishers to put out combustible solids.

Takeaways 

Let’s look at a summary of our findings.

What type of fire can be put out safely with water?:

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