-: Fire suppression.
Now, fire suppression is the process of controlling
and/or extinguishing fires to protect
your organization's employees, data, equipment,
and buildings.
You have to choose the right type of fire suppression
and this is probably going to be one of the most
important facility decisions that your organization
is going to make to ensure that its long-term safety
of its employees and its networks remains unchallenged.
Now, there are three types of fire suppression
that we have to discuss for the Security+ exam.
There's handheld fire extinguishers,
sprinkler systems, and special hazard protection systems
that we use especially in our server rooms.
Now, let's discuss handheld extinguishers first
because they're not created equally.
Each one is a little bit different.
In fact, before you choose the proper extinguisher,
you need to identify what class of fire
you're trying to put out.
Fires are broken down into five different categories.
Class A, B, C, D, and K.
Class A fires consist of solid combustible materials,
things like wood and paper.
To put out a Class A fire, you should use
a water-based extinguisher.
This extinguisher should have a green triangle label on it
so you can quickly identify it as
a water-based extinguisher.
I like to think of the green triangle as a green tree
since these Class A fires are made up of tree products.
Things like wood and paper, in most cases.
Now, you shouldn't use a water-based extinguisher
in a server room because this could cause
a lot of damage to the different components there,
as well as put you in danger of an electric shock
when that water hits something that's
electrically charged.
The second type of fire is known as a Class B fire.
Class B fires consist of flammable gases or liquids.
To put out a Class B fire, you should use
a dry chemical agent or a CO2-based fire extinguisher.
These are usually labeled with a red square
to signify that they can be used on Class B fires.
Class C fires, on the other hand, are electrical fires.
If you encounter an electrical fire,
the first thing you should try to do
is shut off the power to the room
because if you remove the power,
this could put out the fire for you.
If it doesn't, then you need to extinguish that fire
with a fire extinguisher.
If you're going to use a portable extinguisher,
you should look for a CO2-based extinguisher
or one with a blue circle on it for Class C fires.
Next, we have Class D fires and these are made up
of combustible metals like magnesium, titanium, and lithium.
Now, you might be wondering,
where am I going to find these combustible metals
inside my office?
Well, most laptops have lithium batteries
so if you have a laptop fire, you have to treat it
as a Class D fire.
To extinguish it, you should look for an extinguisher
with a yellow decagon on it and this extinguisher
is going to be fully yellow in color
so you can quickly and easily identify it.
Class K fires are composed of cooking oil.
So, if your organization has a kitchen
inside of its facilities,
you should have a fire extinguisher system
that's built-in to handle grease and oil fires
that could occur during cooking.
This type of fire is symbolized by a black hexagon
and the systems that are going to extinguish them
have that black hexagon on them, as well.
Now, as you walk around your office or your facilities,
you're likely going to see one of three types
of portable extinguishers.
The first is an ABC extinguisher,
which uses dry chemicals to put out fires.
If possible, you should avoid using this
on computer equipment, though, because
the dry chemical is corrosive and destructive
to computer and electrical components.
The second and probably most common type
you're going to see is called a BC extinguisher,
which is used on B and C fires.
This most often uses CO2 to put out a fire.
This is useful for both gas fires, Class B,
and electrical fires, Class C, and it's also safe
to use on computers.
Be careful when using a CO2 extinguisher, though,
because it will smother the fire by
displacing oxygen from it, which is great,
but if there's people close by,
it's going to take out that oxygen that they need to breathe
and people could have trouble breathing
if there's no oxygen in the room.
The third type is a yellow extinguisher
and these bottles are used for Class D or metal fires.
These are less common but you should be aware
of where they are in case you need one
inside your organization.
Now, in addition to the handheld extinguishers,
your facility might use a sprinkler system
to put out fires inside the office.
Sprinkler systems can either be wet pipe or dry pipe.
A wet pipe sprinkler system means that there's
water already filling all of the sprinkler pipes
and it's just waiting for that little red glass bulb
to be broken or melt from a fire.
If that bulb melts or it's broken,
it's going to release the water from the sprinkler system
into the office spaces to smother any fire
and release that heat.
Now, in some facilities, the spaces can get really cold
and below freezing, especially if you live in the north.
If you're in a warehouse environment or some other
non-airconditioned space,
you don't want water sitting in these pipes
because they could freeze and crack.
If your facility has this issue,
then you want to use a dry pipe sprinkler system, instead.
In this type of system, the pipes are filled
with pressurized air and only pushes water into those pipes
when it's needed to combat a fire.
This happens once that little red bulb is broken,
once again.
The third type of sprinkler system is known as
a pre-action sprinkler system and
it's similar to a dry pipe system,
except it also can be set off if heat or smoke is detected
and it won't wait until there's a full fire
that causes that red bulb to break or melt.
Now, a pre-action sprinkler system won't activate
if the pipe or the bulb is broken by itself
because it still has to detect heat or smoke
before it releases its contents into the room.
Now, in most server rooms, we don't want
to use a sprinkler system.
It's not a very good choice for us
and the reason is if somebody sets off the sprinkler system
by accident, it would release water into the server room
and it would destroy all of the servers
and other electrical components we have
by surrounding them with water.
Now, for this reason, we're going to use
a special hazard protection system
instead of a sprinkler system.
This type of system is known as
a clean agent system and it will
push gas into the room instead
and that will allow it to smother the fire.
This may be something like HALON,
which we don't use commonly anymore
here in the United States because
it's bad for the environment.
Or something like FM-200 or even a CO2-based system.
If you're ever working in a server room
and you hear an alarm going off loudly,
you should immediately drop what you're doing
and leave the room because this loud alarm
is a warning that the gas is about to be released
into the server room and if you remain in that room,
it's going to suffocate the fire
and it's going to suffocate you.
So, you need to get out immediately when you hear that noise.