History of the Fire Extinguisher - Find Out Who Invented the Fire Extinguisher

The portable fire extinguisher is a vital appliance in every workplace these days, not least because governments recognizing their vital part in fire safety have made it illegal to not supply them. Have you ever thought about how long these ingenious devices have existed, or that it was who invented them?

Who Invented The First Fire Extinguisher?

The solution to this depends on what you mean by fire extinguisher. The first illustration of something recognizable as a portable fire fighting device are available almost 200 decades back. George Manby made this breakthrough from England in 1813 with what he called an 'Extincteur'. It consisted of a copper container which had inside it three liters of potassium carbonate solution and compressed air. This was the first illustration of the simple principle behind all fire extinguishers now, where a flame suppressant is propelled from a container by a pressurized gas.

Credit ought to be given, but to the chemist Ambrose Godfrey, who invented the very first automatic fire fighting apparatus ninety years before Manby's portable extinguisher. Abrose Godfrey's fire extinguisher wasn't designed to be mobile, but to be abandoned in place in a room to protect it in case fire started. It might be regarded as a precursor to modern day sprinkler systems. Godfrey's device had a series of fuses, which could be ignited in case a fire started in the area. These would then detonate a tiny explosive charge inside a container filled with liquid, which was then sprinkled round the room, extinguishing the flames.

George Manby's inventiveness didn't finish with this device, also he made various different inventions that depended on harnessing the power of little explosions. One of the best known of these was the Manby Mortar, which was used to assist rescue ships in distress, by firing ropes from land onto the stricken vessels. His additional thoughts and creations included a system to rescue people who'd dropped into water through ice along with a mechanism to rescue people trapped in burning buildings by allowing them to jump to safety. He was also the first person to think of the proposal that there must be a national fire rescue service.

Who Invented the Soda-Acid Fire Extinguisher

The soda-acid fire extinguisher works by mixing together two materials that react to produce carbon dioxide gas, which is then utilized to inject some liquid from the extinguisher. The very first illustration of a soda-acid fire extinguisher was in 1866 when Francois Carlier patented his in France. In this case tartaric acid was mixed with a solution of sodium bicarbonate to produce the gas.

From the US the first example of a soda-acid fire extinguisher is the one improved by Almon M Granger in 1881, who used concentrated sulfuric acid in his variant of this fire extinguisher. All soda-acid extinguishers worked on the exact same basic principle, which was that the acid was contained inside a small vial inside the machine, and one of several systems could be used for discharging the acid to the pop up solution.

Usually the trigger to release the acid and combine the chemicals would be either a plunger or alternative system causing the breaking of this vial, or even a lever method to release a stopper from one end of it. In any event, once the acid was released, the response produced carbon dioxide, which then forced liquid out of this appliance in a jet, which might be directed at the flame through a nozzle or hose.

The earliest known illustration of a compound foam fire extinguisher has been that devised in Russia from Alexander Laurant in 1905. The thought was quite similar to the essentials of the soda-acid extinguisher, but a foam chemical was contained, which induced some of the gas to be trapped inside the liquid, producing a foam. The foam compound was apparently often created from licorice root, and this could be contained in the soda solution. The extinguishers were often activated by turning the appliance upside down to mix the substances.

Also called CTC fire extinguishers, the carbon tetrachloride extinguisher was initially invented by the company Pyrene around 1912. The extinguishers propelled the liquid CTC in the fire by way of a hand pump. The CTC vaporized and generated a thick suffocating blanket within the flames, starving the fire of oxygen and preventing combustion. There was also a 'bomb' variant of the CTC extinguisher in the form of a glass jar that you threw at the flame.

The potency of this CTC extinguisher on liquid and electric fires made them very popular with the automotive industry for a long time, though the by-products of the process could have very serious medical effects, particularly in restricted spaces. It was so later replaced with extinguishers using less toxic compounds.
That same standard principle devised by George Manby, where a gas is used to force a combustion suppressant from a container, remains the principal mechanism behind all modern day mobile fire extinguishers. Most modern fire extinguishers will work on one of 2 main systems. The compressed gas will be stored inside the primary container itself, known as stored pressure type extinguishers, or in a small cartridge inside, called gas cartridge type extinguishers.

Stored pressure are the most common type of extinguishers, the benefit of gas capsule being that they are simpler to recharge if used rather often. Carbon dioxide fire extinguishers are the sole exception to this because they simply contain liquid carbon dioxide under pressure.

The evolution and refinement of mobile fire extinguishers has come a long way in the last two hundred years. The several different sorts of fire have been classified, and all modern day fire extinguishers are given a score show which kind of fires they are safe to use on and just how successful they are. These classifications and evaluations are a significant improvement because tackling a fire with the wrong type of fire extinguisher can have very serious consequences, such as electrocution cause using a water extinguisher on an electrical fire. Find out more information click fire extinguisher company