Fire Officials Instruct Workers in Fire Extinguisher Use

By Andrew Gorosko

Fire extinguishers are commonplace in industrial, commercial, and institutional settings.

The bright red devices stand at the ready to be used to put out small fires before they can spread.

However, unless the people who are most likely to be near those fire extinguishers when an emergency occurs know how to use the devices, precious time can be lost in halting a small fire’s spread.

Fire extinguishers bear labels explaining their proper use, but in the heat of an emergency, reading that label can mean time lost in putting out a fire.

On October 23, the town fire marshal’s office held one of several training sessions at Curtis Packaging Corporation on Berkshire Road in Sandy Hook to explain to factory workers the correct technique for fighting fires using fire extinguishers.

Deputy Fire Marshals Rich Frampton and Mike Zilinek first showed a video to about 15 Curtis employees in the factory’s lunch room. Overall, several dozen workers received the training at the factory.

The video depicted fire emergencies and provided instruction on how to use extinguishers to put out the flames. The film described the various types of extinguishers that are in general use for putting out different types of fires.

To amplify that education, the workers then proceeded outdoors to a paved area near the factory’s maintenance department where the deputy fire marshals had set up a fire simulator to provide the workers with some practical training in using fire extinguishers to put out small fires, and to keep fires from spreading.

Mr Frampton used a set of controls to regulate the flames in the simulator whose fire is fueled by an adjacent tank of propane.

Worker after worker took turns at handling the heft of fire extinguishers and manipulating their controls to put out the flames extending upward from the simulator.

The simulator’s controls allow its operator to create fires of various intensities for training purposes.

Bruce Clark, Curtis Packaging’s emergency coordinator, looked on as successive workers practiced using the extinguishers. Mr Clark also replenished the spent extinguishers with water for their reuse.

The large factory/warehouse complex operated by Curtis Packaging holds about 80 fire extinguishers positioned at strategic spots where they are accessible in the event of fires.

Besides the worker training at Curtis Packaging, the town has provided similar fire extinguisher training sessions to workers at Hubbell Plastics Inc on Prospect Drive, and at TÜV Rheinland of North America Inc on Commerce Road, Mr Frampton said.

Mr Frampton estimates that about 120 workers, so far, have received the fire extinguisher training with the fire simulator.

Such training provides people with a valuable skill, he said.

Mr Frampton said that firms interested in having free fire extinguisher training sessions conducted by the town can make arrangements by contacting the fire marshal’s office at the town offices at 31 Peck’s Lane, telephone 270-4370.