Fire blankets

[Cornishman]

Every safety campaign I have been involved with, and it is quite a number spanning the 50 years I have been sailing, has either recommended or demanded that a fire blanket is installed. I have often wondered at this as the only use quoted for them is over a chip pan fire and I have never come across anyone who makes chips this way on a boat.
That said, the latest issue of Which? says that fire blankets are no better than wet tea towels, being too stiff. The current range of fire blankets extinguished only 10 per cent of fires in tests, whereas wet tea towels were successful in 80 per cent.
How many of you carry fire blankets on board and have you ever used one?

 

[Phoenix of Hamble]

I carry one, as has pretty much every boat I've sailed in the last 20 years...... thankfully I've never had to use one....

 

[pragmatist]

Yes we do have one and indeed some at home too. However I have extinguished a chip pan fire by placing a solid beech chopping board over the pan - for the lack of summat else to hand at the time. The board is still in use some 20 odd years on - just has a few black marks !

Does anyone know, though, how stiff the blankets are ? The bits that extrude from our box don't look that stiff and if you had to throw something over the whole stove rather than a pan perhaps that would help. When a pan boils over we get pools of water round the burner - perhaps if you had a slip with a frying pan, got hot oil or a sausage or something round the flame you would have a problem a blanket might solve. Does anyone know any firemen who might have a more informed view than my inane ramblings ?

(just had brilliant idea - friend on nearby pontoon is some kind of fire officer so next time I see him I'll ask some of this stuff)

 

[snowleopard]

I read recently that fire blankets are no longer recommended, even on shore. The reason given was that some people are too stupid to use them properly and try to pull them over the fire from the back thus directing the flames into their faces!

 

[pragmatist]

Hmmn - well if we all waited for Nana to tell us what to do ... Just think how long it would have taken to build your boat if you'd had to wait for the buildings inspector for every stage ... Why does this society assume that we're all so dumb we need regulating ? Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr (not at you of course)

 

[ShipsWoofy]

I heard that too, at the time I did not understand how and why someone would do this, I still don't. It is the exact opposite natural reaction, the natural would be to throw the blanket at the fire from a distance IMHO.

I do not carry a fire blanket as it is pointless. Our galley is too narrow to approach the fire with a full sized blanket, you are supposed to hold the corners with lifted extended arms thus covering your body with the blanket. You then walk up to the pan and place the blanket over to suffocate the fire.

Theory is fine in a kitchen or open galley, but a long narrow galley I fear this would be dangerous. I have a kitchen oil extinguisher to hand, the type that turns the oil to a coagulated lump thus removing the fuel from the triangle.

 

[Vara]

When I did my fire brigade training(15 years ago) we played with two types of fire blankets.
Leather....stiff and now not in common use.
Woven fibre glass...flexible and the sort found in most domestic and marine use.

Technique for use.Take fire blanket with a thumb up grip and turn back top edge so that no parts of your hand are exposed to fire with main extent of blanket in front of body,advance on fire and smother with blanket.
I don't know why they are not recommended as in practise situations they seemed to be effective.
Certainly better than trying to use an extinguisher which on the demonstrations I saw only managed to disperse large quantities of burning fat over a large area.

But the bottom line is don't use cooking methods which are intrinsically dangerous like deep fat frying on a boat.

 

[graham]

I think a fire blanket can al;so be used to wrap around a person with burning clothing.

We recently had an incident where a teatowel fell onto the lit cooker and caught alight.Sobering how dificult it was to put out.Im sure a drypowder extinguisher would have worked well but perhaps stupidly I didnt want to make a mess.....

 

[oldharry]

Compulsory annual fire training at work (run by experienced Fire fighters) at work always includes the use of Fire Blankets. The Fire Officers always tell us these are the simplest, safest and most effective way of dealing with a small conflagration - with one proviso, that they MUST be held and used correctly. Training includes using extinguishers of different types - they too can actually make a fire worse if wrongly used.

Thankfully I have never had to try for real, so could not say whether Fire Blankets really do work. But trained Firemen seem to reckon they are a good thing.

The joke for us is that having spent time in practising how to use various extinguishers, we are then told most emphatically - Never try to tackle a fire! Always wait for the Fire Brigade.....

....cant do that afloat of course!

 

[graham]

We do a similar course now and then.It allways surprises me how easilly they set light to a pan of diesel for us to put out with extinguishers.

On one course the instructor went through the procedure for evacuating the building and assembling in the carpark.He didnt seem interested in our protests that as we work at sea on small boats there is no adjacent carpark!

 

[FullCircle]

Fire Blankets? They don't take up much room, they cost peanuts, they are easy to deploy and I might not have a handily packed wet tea towel about me. Mine stays on the boat regardless, with the other 5 extinguishers and smoke/gas alarms. Any one piece of equipment only goes to make up your firefighting strategy. Its suitability for use has to be assessed for the given situation.
I have lost one good friend at work and one entire part of my family to a house fire. I was also rescued from a burning house when I was 5.
Leave no stone unturned for fire precautions and training in the use of the equipment.
Please.


Jim

 

[Cornishman]

But if you had proof that wet tea towels did a much better job than the current range of fire blankets as the Which? article suggests after exhaustive tests at the Consumer Associaton labs, which would you prefer?
BTW what do you dry your crockery with if you do not have tea towels handy?

 

[FullCircle]

I am not saying I dont have tea towels, but they could be stowed in a cupboard, dry (as you mention) or otherwise unavailable or difficult to get to to. I don't instruct my crew to wet tea towels before throwing them on a fire, but I do show them how/where/why the safety equipment is. I keep a fire blanket mounted, ready for use, in the same place every time.
In a statistical dissertation, I once proved that Nurses in Birmingham with Washing Machines were more likely to be involved in violent crime. So what?
And as for 'exhaustive tests' what scientific frequency/results determination algorithm did they use? What was their sample? Likely not very scientific at all.
I also said that each piece of usable equipment should be used on its merits, which includes its availability at time/place of incident.
Not my most jovial subject I am afraid.

 

[pragmatist]

Must have a multi-hull. I was astonished when I offered to help dry up & Mrs SnowLeopard looked at me as though I was mad and said "We never dry up on the boat - it saves on tea-towel laundry" - ever known a monohull where you could leave your washing up to drain while sailing ? /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

 

[Bluebird]

Fire blankets also make superb shields to help you move pass a fire.

Mount them next to the forward cabin door (alongside powder fire extinguisher) so you can pull it down from the doorway. It will give you and your sleeping partner a chance to get pass the fire. The extinguisher can also be used to knock down the flames but you will not be able to stay in the cabin - the powder will choke you. In any case, you need to get out quickly and fight the fire with what's left in the extinguisher from the 'safety' of the companionway.

A 1 kg extinguisher will last for about 6 seconds - if you keep it upright.

Bluebird /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

 

[Guest]

I have fire blanket handy to place over cooker ... a dry powder ext. nearby and a pressure stored foam ext. next to that.

Midships is another dry powder job.

All on 25ft boat.

Having had Merchant Navy training for fire-fighting I would not give up the fire-blanket - it is a versatile useful tool in fighting fires / protecting a person / rolling a burning person in .... Wet tea towel aint big enough for the job .... sorry I'll stick with my Kidde Blanket.