DIN SPEC 14412:2013-09

With the DIN SPEC the user of DIN EN 3 shall be provided with basic information regarding the applied fire extinguishing media as well as their disposal and recovery. In addition, recommendations for practicing with powdered and foam extinguishing media are included. Beyond the applicability for portable fire extinguishers, this information can also be used for mobile fire extinguishers in accordance with the DIN EN 1866 standard series, for fixed firefighting systems and for use by firefighting rescue teams. Fire protection and environment protection display many parallels. As a rule: When a fire is avoided or successfully extinguished at an early stage, the harmful effects from flue and pyrolysis gas as well as the extinguishing media used remain at an uncritical level. The public, the user and the legislators have placed strict benchmarks with regard to environmental impact on the fire extinguishing media used. Currently there exist four fire extinguishing media groups in Germany: 1) water and water with additives; 2) carbon dioxide; 3) fire extinguishing powder; 4) fire extinguishing foam. Each of these groups has particular extinguishing characteristics which cannot be done without. For protection of life, property and the environment, the level of training of the rescue personnel and the fire service shall be kept at a high level through regular training. Proper, goal-oriented training results in a high level of operational readiness and, correspondingly, mitigation of damage. Operational readiness and the resulting mitigation of damage also require that extinguishing devices and systems are checked in regular intervals with regard to their functional safety. The following modifications have been made with respect to the preceding version of DIN EN 3 Supplement 1:2000-03: a) supplement has been transferred into a DIN SPEC (prestandard); b) statements about the suitability of fire extinguishing media have been revised; c) notes regarding disposal and recovery of the extinguishing media have been adapted to the most recent knowledge; d) statements about the suitability of extinguishing media für Class F have been added; e) Annex A and Annex B have been replaced by a reference to the DWA Advisory Leaflet M 718; f) the previous Annex C (Bibliography) has been updated. The previous contents of the supplement have been transferred into a DIN SPEC following the Pre standard procedure since supplements are of a purely informative character and shall not contain requirements. Drafting requirements cannot be avoided for many reasons. The committee responsible for this supplement is NA 031-01 FBR "Fachbereichsausschuss Handbetätigte Geräte für die Brandbekämpfung - SpA zu CEN/TC 70" ("Section Committee Manual Means of Firefighting - Mirror Committee of CEN/TC 70") at DIN.