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WW2 RAF Fire Extinguisher


stevestrat

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Yep, I'm at it again! Still waiting to hear from the RAF museum about the colour of the oil drum, in the meantime, fire extinguishers, I mean the wall mounted ones found in buildings. I've seen pics of early 1940's ones (1940 & 1942) that are red but I recall reading somewhere that they were a copper colour? Can anyone clear that up?

The figues, well some of them, are done. I still have some that will be mechanics working on the Typhoon but I'm not touching them 'til the Typhoon itself is finished so that they can be done in suitable poses.

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  • 2 weeks later...

There we are, bit of jointery and we get the answers

Red: water

Cream: Foam (to be more precise: AFFF- Aqueous Film-Forming Foam) replaced 'Saponine' foam, which had an awful tendancy to 'break down' under certain conditions

Blue: Dry Powder

Black: CO2

Green: BCF Halon (as I understand it illegal for hand-held, but still legal for enclosure systems, although this was a few years ago). According to my dad, there was nothing better for car fires, particularly for unleaded fuel, which is difficult to put out by normal foam.

 

Now if, as I understand it, dry powder was for electrical, AFFF for flammable liquids...

 

Why did RAF refuellers carry cream extinguishers and army ones blue? (I've got a good idea, but I won't start an inter-service spat)

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@ Kenneth O'neill

🤔 You obviously didn't read the thread did you.

the colour of the extinguisher was determined by the contents and type - not the colour of the vehicle.

to repeat-

cream (AFFF)- for flammable liquids

Blue (Dry Powder)- electrical 

 

So what was the army thinking behind putting a extinguisher for electrical fires on a wagon full of flammable liquids?  Interestingly, all the RN & RAF Bedfords refuellers I've seen, had AFFF extinguishers. (At least until the stupid, dangerous EU directive requiring all extinguishers to be red)

   

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@"Braille Dave", tell me where my 11:44:07 Wed, 12 Oct 2016 mentions extinguisher type! Oh and I've had training in use of portable fire extinguishers by Highlands and Islands Airports fire service, who said that you could use dry powder on contained liquids fires if foam extinguishants were not available.

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