Hello Readers !

 I have a feeling that you are all having a Great time in life and enjoying yourselves. When we are busy and go about our work and business, it gives us great happiness and a lot of satisfaction. Keeping professional success apart, I hope you are all taking good care of your family members. I got disturbed when I read and watched the atrocities perpetrated towards Women and hence, did my bit by posting a video on my Youtube channel regarding Women Safety.

In my last blog, we have discussed how fire spreads and in this blog, let us discuss its classification. Humans since time immemorial, have been always looking to remember things in a very easy way and classified things into different categories. Similarly, to fight fire easily we have divided Fire in different classes. The classification of the fire is done based on the fuels available to burn and their classes are A, B, C, D and K or F, means there are only 5 classes of fire or fuel. Let us examine them one by one.

CLASS A : In this class, all the materials which are solid in nature and can become ash when burnt are called Class A fire. Examples are Wood, Paper, Textiles, Plastic, Coal etc. When Solids burn, usually the smoke is White in Colour.

CLASS B : This class is all about the flammable Liquids like Petrol, Kerosene, Diesel and others. Though the fatty oils used for cooking are liquids, they don’t come under this classification. When Liquids burn, they emit smoke either which is thick Black in Colour or in Grey. In certain classifications, gases are also  included in this class.

CLASS C :   All the flammable gases like LPG, Methane, Ethane, Hydrogen etc come under this classification. Not only gases, but this class includes fire on electrically charged equipment otherwise known as Electrical Fires. Till the last decade, Fire on Electrical Equipment was called E class but subsequently this type of fire has been changed to C.

CLASS D :  Metals that catch fire are categorised into this class. In our knowledge, the metals like Gold, Silver, Iron and Copper melt when they are heated up. But certain metals like Lithium, Sodium, Potassium, Aluminium, Tin and Zinc can burn in metallic state.

CLASS F OR K : The four classes mentioned above have existed for quite a long time in the history of classification of Fire. However, with the advent of new types of Foods which are cooked in oils with high fat content, this class has come into existence. Oils used for cooking, particularly for deep fry and for that which contain a lot of fat, fall into this category. The reason being, when used, they leave a lot of grease as residue and when that burns, it is a totally different dimension. The reason this class is F or K is because of two schools of thought ie, The European and American. The European classify it as Fatty oil fire hence Class F. The Americans call it Kitchen fire and hence K class.

This table will make you understand even better.

I feel that most of you would be able to understand the above classification on seeing the above pic. Let us discuss the type of media to fight fire in the next blog. Till then, stay safe and be safe.

Seshadri Varadarajan.
Sr. Corporate Trainer
Usha Fire Safety Equipments pvt ltd.
Mobile 9840814353.