What is the Fire Safety Stick?
Fire Safety Stick is an innovative portable extinguishing device with remarkable extinguishing capacity, designed to aid in the suppression of incipient fires and for use as a personal protection device. It is a simple and easy way to ensure that you are prepared in the event of a fire in your home, office or vehicle. Small and lightweight, the Fire Safety Stick is environmentally friendly and can be safely stored for easy access in an emergency, preventing the fire from getting out of hand.
What is the discharge time of the Fire Safety Stick?
There are currently three options available depending on their minimum discharge times – 50 seconds and 100 seconds.
Just compare that to a traditional powder extinguisher weighing 1kg to 2kg – these would only have a discharge time of just 7 seconds – providing it has been correctly maintained, often they haven’t been!
Is the gas safe to breathe?
Yes, the Fire Safety Stick discharge is safe to breathe and is both non-corrosive and non-toxic. So it’s fine around children and pets too. General safe practices are always recommended. Although the FSS acts by removing the oxygen, it does this at the flame level, interrupting the chain of combustion (fire triangle – Heat/Fuel/Oxygen).
But, it does not remove the local oxygen levels that would prevent breathing as some traditional extinguishers did (eg the banned Halon type). However, we would not recommend having the discharge aimed at a person’s face for period of time.
Is it safe for the environment?
Fire Safety Stick has no global warming potential and no ozone depletion potential.
Is it safe to use in a confined room?
Yes absolutely! We have tested activating the Fire Safety Stick in a small room to ensure that it doesn’t impact breathing or visibility. We did this in a closed room 3m x 3m. It was very much like someone was “vaping” in the room, both visibility and breathing were not impeded too much at all. Of course in a real fire situation, the smoke inhalation from the fire would be a much greater danger.
In fact, one of the great advantages of the Fire Safety Stick is that in confined areas, you can activate it, and leave to work in the room whilst you escape. No need to hold a trigger to keep it going!
Does it make a mess like traditional extinguishers?
NO! The discharge gas form the Fire Safety Stick is totally clean and will not leave any damaging residue. During discharge a chemical reaction does take place which occasionally expels a trace amount of soot from the casing. Even in the most extreme instance, the net total of discharge is so minuscule compared to a traditional extinguisher that it is effectively considered to be non-existent. Beyond the clean nature of the discharge, FSS is non-corrosive, non-toxic, and environmentally safe. Compare this to a typical powder or foam extinguisher which often create more damage and mess than the fire itself.
Does it need servicing & does it have a shelf life?
It’s solid construction, no moving parts, and lack of compressed gas (unlike a traditional fire extinguisher) means it will never need any professional service. In addition, the solid chemical that makes up the Fire Safety Stick has a theoretical non-expiry date, though here in the UK we suggest 15 years based upon current tests, the manufacturers have batch-tested FSS that were 15 years since manufacture and still completely operational.
Does it have a British Standard Approval or Kitemark?
The FSS has the European CE mark and UKCA mark of approval, it also has numerous other certifications from around the world, including independent tests to confirm its ability to extinguish classes A, B, C, Electrical to 100,000 volts and class F Fires.
Currently, it does not have the British Standards (BSi) Approval and therefore, a Kitemark. Existing BSi approvals for extinguishers (EN3) are based upon traditional pressurised extinguishers, with specific guidelines to pressure gauges, corrosion tests etc. However, because the Fire Safety Stick is a totally unique system and so current guidelines do not apply to it at all. It doesn’t even come under the BS6165:2019 for small disposable fire extinguishers, as it’s a non-pressurised, non-aerosol type. Therefore, they would need to create a whole new approvals process for this type of extinguisher which has only been introduced to the UK market since Spring 2019.
Can I refill it?
The Fire Safety Stick is a single-use fire extinguisher. Once activated, with it will continue to discharge until empty. Once finished its safe to domestically recycle the two remaining components (the aluminium tube and the black plastic handle).
Whereas traditional extinguishers, once activated must be commercially disposed of and /or re-charged if suitable. Also even if they are only used for a fraction of their capacity, they must also be professionally recharged.
Can it activate/depressurise unintentionally?
No, the unit remains fully intact and is not pressurised at all. Only if exposed to extreme temperatures – 350 degrees Celsius (that of a fire!) would it then activate and sends out an aerosol* stream.
*This is the descriptive process that an aerosol spray is created with the particles and Nitrogen gas during the activation process. The FSS is not an aerosol in the conventional sense ie a pressurised can under constant pressure controlled by a nozzle.
The non-explosiveness of the Fire Safety Stick aerosol fire suppressant is officially recognised, value binding, and has a European validity by the Italian Ministerial Decree 04/04/1973 by Homeland Security 557/PAS.7317-XV.J.(3766) (Prevention and monitoring, possession of illegal fireworks and classified as non-exploding), in conformity with Ministerial Decree D.M. 4.4.1973 (G.U. n. 120 dated 10.5.1973) further to the advice by the Advisory Committee for Weapons Control as well as by the Prefecture in Turin, Italy.
