Fire Extinguisher Colours in the UK: What Every Band Means and Which Fires They Fight
By the DC Fire & Security engineering team — installing and maintaining fire and security systems since 2010. Updated July 2026.
Quick answer
Every modern UK fire extinguisher has a red body — the type is identified by a coloured band covering around 5% of the surface, per BS EN3. All red (no band) = water. Cream = foam. Blue = dry powder. Black = CO2. Yellow = wet chemical. The band tells you what the extinguisher can fight — and just as importantly what it must never touch: water on an electrical or oil fire makes the fire worse, and only wet chemical is designed for deep-fat fryer fires.
The five colours, what they fight, what they make worse
| Band colour | Contents | Use on | Never on |
|---|---|---|---|
| Red (all-red body, no band) | Water | Class A — wood, paper, textiles, furniture | Electrical equipment; flammable liquids; cooking oil — water turns a chip-pan fire into a fireball |
| Cream | Foam (AFFF) | Class A solids and Class B flammable liquids — petrol, solvents, paints | Cooking oil fires; not designed for live electrical (dielectrically tested foams exist, but treat electrical as off-limits unless the label says otherwise) |
| Blue | Dry powder (ABC) | Classes A, B and C (flammable gases); safe on live electrical | Enclosed indoor spaces if avoidable — the cloud destroys visibility, contaminates everything, and is brutal on electronics; never on fryer fires |
| Black | CO2 (carbon dioxide) | Live electrical equipment; Class B liquids — the standard office pairing with water or foam | Class A solids (no soaking effect — expect reignition); confined spaces without ventilation; never grip the horn — it frosts |
| Yellow | Wet chemical | Class F — cooking oils and fats: fryers, commercial kitchens; also rated Class A | Electrical unless the label states a dielectric test; Class B liquid fires |
Fire classes, decoded
- Class A — ordinary solids: wood, paper, fabric, most bins. The class every workplace has
- Class B — flammable liquids: petrol, diesel, solvents, paint. Garages, workshops, plant rooms
- Class C — flammable gases: LPG, methane. Extinguishers rarely fight gas fires directly — isolate the supply; powder covers the class
- Class D — combustible metals: magnesium, lithium swarf. Specialist powder only, specialist premises only
- Class F — cooking oils and fats. The one class where using the wrong extinguisher is reliably catastrophic — wet chemical only
- 'Electrical' — not formally a class in the UK scheme; the lightning-bolt pictogram on CO2 and powder labels shows what's safe on live equipment
What your premises actually needs
The specification comes from your fire risk assessment, not from a catalogue — but the pattern for most ordinary workplaces is consistent: Class A cover on every floor sized to the area (the usual benchmark is a combined 26A rating per floor as the starting point, more for larger floors), which in practice means water or foam within reach of any point, paired with CO2 wherever there's electrical equipment — so the classic office floor carries a foam-and-CO2 pair by the exits. Kitchens with fryers add wet chemical; workshops and vehicle areas add powder or foam for Class B; travel distance to the nearest extinguisher should stay inside 30 metres.
Placement matters as much as choice: on escape routes and by final exits, visible, on brackets or stands at a consistent height, with the right ID sign above each one. An extinguisher behind a stack of boxes is inventory, not fire protection.
If nobody has ever formally specified your extinguisher schedule, that's a symptom worth reading: it usually means the premises hasn't had a proper fire risk assessment — which is a legal requirement for effectively every non-domestic premises, and the document that also drives your alarm and fire door obligations.
Servicing, lifespan and the pre-1997 colours
Extinguishers are serviced annually by a competent technician to BS 5306-3, with an extended service on a longer cycle — five years for water, foam and powder (discharge and refill), ten for CO2 (overhaul). Each service gets a label entry; an extinguisher with no service label or one out of date fails any inspection that looks at it.
If your building still has fully colour-bodied extinguishers — a solid cream foam unit, a solid blue powder one — those pre-date the 1997 switch to BS EN3 red bodies, which makes them roughly three decades past a realistic service life. They belong in a skip via a proper disposal route, not on a wall.
Two things worth adding for completeness: fire blankets (the other kitchen essential) are for containment — smothering a pan or wrapping a person — not a substitute for wet chemical on an established fryer fire; and lithium-ion battery fires, the fastest-growing fire risk in most buildings, are not properly addressed by any of the five standard types — specialist agents exist, and prevention (charging practices, storage) is the real control. Your risk assessment should name both.
The thirty-second recap
- Red body always; the band is the identity: none = water, cream = foam, blue = powder, black = CO2, yellow = wet chemical
- Water and foam soak solids; CO2 handles live electrical; powder is the outdoor generalist; wet chemical owns the fryer
- The two killer errors: water (or foam) into hot oil, and anything but wet chemical on a fryer
- Annual service to BS 5306-3, extended service at 5 or 10 years, and the schedule itself set by the fire risk assessment
- Extinguishers are first-aid firefighting for escape routes — the alarm raises the building, the doors hold the fire, and nobody's job description includes heroics
Frequently Asked Questions
What colour is a CO2 fire extinguisher?
What do I use on an electrical fire?
What colour extinguisher is for a chip pan or deep-fat fryer fire?
Why are all fire extinguishers red now?
How many fire extinguishers does my business need?
Do fire extinguishers expire?
Extinguishers are one line of a bigger fire safety picture
We don't sell extinguishers — no upsell here. What we do is the rest of it: fire risk assessments that specify exactly what your premises needs (extinguisher schedule included), fire alarms, fire doors and fire stopping, across Luton, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and North London. If your extinguisher schedule has never been set by an assessment, that's the gap to close first.
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