Hello,


Did a new regualtion come into play in November for fire extinguishers?
A year ago an un-named firm kitted one of my sites out with fire extinguishers and now on the annual service are saying we need more becuase of a new law that came in in NoVEMBER?????????

They seem to be doing this alot lately, seems odd as they do the plans and work out how many we need initially.

BS 5306-8:2012 superseded BS 5306-8:2000 in October last year.

There’s loads in it, but as with most BS stuff, it is best practice, rather than a legislative requirement.

One significant point is that dry powder extinguishers are now (generally) no longer recommended for indoor use.

6 litre AFFF extinguishers that have passed an electrical conductivity test (BS EN3) are also recommended over 9 litre water ones that haven’t.

Class A extinguishers should be located so that the distance of travel is no longer than 30 metres to the point of a fire.

That’s just stuff off the top of my head. There’s probably plenty that I’ve missed. Might be worth procuring a copy as I expect some extinguisher providers/ maintenance companies ‘might’ use it as a sales tool…

As always though, it's all down to risk assessment, so if you are carrying out the RA's, you can (if you can justify it) implement your own interpretations.