Halon dumps: a data point

From: Pat Barron <pat_at_transarc.ibm.com>
Date: Thu Sep 14 10:06:15 2000

The cool thing about Halon (and why it is an effective fire supressant) is
that it does not work by displacing oxygen - of course, it *will* displace
oxygen in large enough quantity. It works by chemically interfering with
the process of combustion. You don't need a whole lot to put out a fire.
I'm not sure why you'd need to dump so much Halon into a computer room
that it would suffocate a human, unless you were just trying to make sure
that it would get into everything in case there was a fire.

I have three Halon extinguishers at home, and wouldn't be without them.
I gave one to my fiancee' (now my wife....) at one point when she was
living in her own apartment, "just to be safe". And wouldn't you know,
she had a grease fire in her oven one night. One big spray from the
Halon, and it was out. Very, very cool.

--Pat.
Received on Thu Sep 14 2000 - 10:06:15 BST