Safety Tidbit 4.21 - Obsolete Fire Extinguishers

Safety Tidbit 4.21 – Obsolete Fire Extinguishers

Reference: NFPA 10 Standard for Portable Fire Extinguishers 2018

A colleague asked me which fire extinguishers are no longer permitted to be serviced. He understood there had been a recent change but wasn’t sure about the change. The NFPA updated its standard for Portable Fire Extinguishers and is available for purchase via their website.

Driven by inconsistencies in piping sizing and sprinkler spacing requirements for the installation of sprinkler systems, a group of fire insurance representatives met in Boston to attempt to resolve these issues.  Now the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) is a nonprofit organization, which was established in 1896, devoted to eliminating death, injury, property and economic loss due to fire, electrical and related hazards.

The NFPA has several types of fire extinguishers it considers obsolete and recommends they be removed from service. A few, listed below, have been obsolete for some time:

1. Soda Acid

2. Chemical foam

3. Cartridge-operated water

4. Cartridge-operated loaded stream

However, to answer my colleague’s question there was a subtle change made to the dry chemical stored-pressure extinguishers (paragraph 4.4.1). Previously, if these extinguishers were “manufactured prior to October 1984, they were be removed from service at the next 6-year maintenance interval for the next hydrotest whichever came first.”

The newest edition of the standard states “ Dry chemical stored-pressure extinguishers with an indicated manufacturing date of 1984 or prior  shall be removed from service.”  Therefore, all of 1984 is included and they are to be removed from service immediately instead of the next service date.

I recommend if you have these types of extinguishers at your facility that you review their manufacturing date and remove the ones that are older than 1984.

Hope this was helpful and thank you for reading my Safety Tidbits! Comments and questions are always welcome. ~ Bryan

P.S. If you have a new safety or health question, please let me know.