One of the most important things about designing a health and safety plan is instructing your employees or at least your key management staff on the use and the classifications of fire extinguishers. Many people know about extinguishers but have no idea which ones work for the type of fire they may have. When your company is giving instruction on the classifications of fire extinguishers, you will need to start by explaining how important it is to use the right equipment, on the proper type of fire. The reason for this is that the use of the wrong extinguisher can create even more problems that may lead to injuries to the person using the extinguisher and the people in the area.

Usually the classifications of the fire extinguisher are comprised of letters which tell you what type of fire it is best used for and number showing the size of the fire that the extinguisher can handle. Some s extinguishers may be used for several types of fires, which mean it will have several different letters in its classification.

In order to come up with the number, many tests were conducted by setting fires and putting them out using the extinguisher. Therefore an extinguisher that has a number of 12 can extinguish 1.2m of fire. The higher the number, the larger the fire you can use this piece of equipment on.

Another important thing that should be a part of your health and safety knows what types of fires can be extinguished by the type of extinguisher you have. The A classification refers to extinguishers that deal with regular everyday materials like paper, wood, textiles and cardboard. With the B classification, you can put out oil and petrol fires. The C classification allows you to extinguish gases and propane. Metal fires use the D classification. The F classification refers to fires made by deep fat burning. In the UK there is no set classification for electrical fires, some think it would be the E classification, however this is not true. The way the UK looks at this classification is that once you take away the power supply it would easily classify as one of the other classifications, so they did not give electrical fires a classification. However it is important to remember that if the extinguisher is a water extinguisher, and you put it on an electrical fire you may find yourself electrocuted.

Knowing the different classifications of fire extinguishers are a good way to ensure your health and safety should you have to deal with a fire. If you don't know the different classifications it is best that you do not try putting the fire out.

设计一个健康和安全的计划最重要的事情之一是指导你的雇员或重要管理者对灭火器进行使用和分类。很多人对灭火器略有所知，但他们并不知道用哪种灭火器对付哪种火焰。当你的公司正在进行灭火器种类讲解时，你首先需要知道正确使用灭火器设备以及判断火焰类别是何等重要。因为错误的使用方法会对手持灭火器的人以及周围的人们造成伤害。

通常灭火器分类方法是由字母和数字组成。字母表示该类灭火器用于对付哪种火源，而数字表示灭火器可以处理的火势大小。有些灭火器可以用于多个类型的火源，因此上面标识的分类含有多个不同的字母。

为了精确地定义灭火器上的数字级别，人们通过点火和用灭火器灭火来进行多次实验。标识为数字12的灭火器可以熄灭1.2米高的火焰。数字越高，可以控制的火势越大。

另一个关系到你的健康和安全的重要的事情是，你得知道你可以用你手里的灭火器扑灭哪种火焰。A类灭火器可以扑灭日常材料引起的火灾，例如纸张，木头，织物，硬纸板。B类可以扑灭汽油和石油引起的大火。C类则用户扑灭煤气、甲烷引起的火灾。扑灭金属燃烧的大火要用D类。F类灭火器用于厚脂肪燃烧引起的大火。在英国，没有电器火灾灭火器的分类，一些人把它叫做E类，然而这是不正确的。一旦将电源切断，这类灭火很容易就被归为其它的类别，所以无法对这一类灭火器进行分类。但重要的是你得记住，如果你用水管类灭火器来对付电器引起的火灾，那你肯定会触电。

了解不同种类的灭火器，能使你在不得不对付火灾时很好地保证你的健康和安全。如果你不了解这些灭火器的差别，你最好别去尝试灭火。