Fire extinguishers

Regarding Gregory's comments about ABC fire extinguishers, he is
right about caustic. However, a fire extinguisher generally covers
very little space/materials before it is used up. There *is* that.
The chemicals can be incredibly damaging to some collections, e.g.,
photographs or leather/vellum bindings. I still think fire
extinguishers should never be encouraged for fighting "real" fires.
If contacted and educated ahead of time, most fire departments are
willing to use misting nozzles on cultural collections. These can
also be put on stationary hoses installed in buildings. But as Greg
says, installed suppression systems still work most efficiently and
if installed properly will actually wet down only a small amount of
material--which we do know how to stabilize and dry effectively.

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 11:94
                   Distributed: Tuesday, May 19, 1998
                       Message Id: cdl-11-94-002
                                  ***