[BC] KOMO, Seattle building fire

[Blake Bowers]

There sure is a lot of misinformation going on about Halon.

Freon is a trade name for a specific group of CFCs.

Halon is a also specific group of CFC's.
The actual name of Halon is Halon 1301 FREON FE 1301

https://www.ansul.com/AnsulGetDoc.asp?FileID=13403

Halon is also known often as FREON 13BI

Does Halon remove oxygen from the air?

It is a common misconception that Halon, like CO2, "removes oxygen from the 
air."

According to the Halon Alternative Research Corporation (www.harc.org): 
"Three things must come together at the same time to start a fire. The first 
ingredient is fuel (anything that can burn), the second is oxygen and the 
last is an ignition source. Traditionally, to stop a fire you need to remove 
one side of the triangle-the ignition, the fuel or the oxygen. Halon adds a 
fourth dimension to fire fighting-breaking the chain reaction. It stops the 
fuel, the ignition and the oxygen from working together by chemically 
reacting with them.

http://www.h3raviation.com/downloads/AC20-42C-Hand-Held-FE-for-use-in-aircraft.pdf

is another good read.

You might want to consider also - take a 5 lb sack of flour, put a fan on 
the
floor in an enclosed room, and bust the bag open over the running fan.

Bet you can't stay in the room, just like any extinguishing agent.  It will
make you sick also.
.
The short discharge time of a Halon "dump" (10 seconds max) keeps the
levels far below lethal levels, however just like with ANY extinguishing 
agent,
the space should be evacuated.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "PeterH" <peterh5322 at rattlebrain.com.

>
> On Jul 4, 2009, at 7:43 AM, Tom Spencer wrote:
>
>> I recall when HALON was first being marketed, it was touted as having
>> similar characteristics as CO2 (heavy gas, would tend to settle
>> near the
>> floor) without the oxygen-depletion / displacement issues that CO2
>> has;
>> a room fire extinguished by HALON was supposed to be able to be
>> re-entered within a very few minutes, rather than ISTR something like
>> the hour that a CO2 event was supposed to require to be vented.
>
> At a former employer, we had a HALON system installed to protect our
> mainframe computer system.
>
> The contractor wanted to test the HALON system, but he used FREON
> instead of HALON during the test, in order to reduce the cost of the
> test.
>
> The system was triggered under test and FREON was released, with the
> effect that everyone on the machine room floor during that test was
> nearly asphyxiated.
>