Employee Fire Extinguisher Training in Los Angeles County

Your people need training too

Extinguishers get a yearly tag. Staff need a yearly class. Under OSHA 29 CFR 1910.157(g), any employer that provides portable extinguishers for employees to use must train those employees when they are hired and at least once a year after that. New hires count. So does the night shift.

What a session covers

We start with the units on your walls. Staff learn the five fire classes: A for ordinary combustibles such as paper and wood, B for flammable liquids, C for energized electrical equipment, D for combustible metals and K for cooking oils and fats. Then they match each class to the extinguishers in your building. The wrong agent can spread a fire.

Most sessions also cover:

Pulling the pin, aiming at the base of the fire, squeezing the handle and sweeping side to side
Reading the pressure gauge and the service tag
The monthly visual check owners do between annual service visits
When to stop and get out

That last item gets real time. A portable extinguisher is for a small fire that just started. If smoke is filling the room, leave. Staff should know their exit route before they ever pull a pin.

Can staff practice with a live discharge at your site? That depends on the space, since an open yard and an office lobby are very different places to discharge an agent, so tell us what you have before we plan the session.

Planning around shifts and records

Session length depends on headcount and on how many extinguisher types your site uses. Smaller groups get more time with an extinguisher in hand. Running two or three shifts? Plan a session for each one, so nobody on the late crew ends up trained from a handout they skimmed during a break.

Keep a record. Write down each person's name, the date, the topics covered and who taught it. File it with your safety paperwork. That sheet shows a new hire was trained at the start of the job and that the full crew was retrained within the year.

Which fire agency covers your site

It depends on the address. County Fire (the Consolidated Fire Protection District of Los Angeles County) covers every unincorporated area plus 59 contract cities in the county, and its Fire Prevention Division runs annual business inspections there through North, Central and East regional units. The City of Los Angeles has its own department, LAFD. Some cities, Burbank among them, run their own fire prevention bureaus. Not sure which applies? Ask the local fire marshal.

Inspectors look at the units and their tags. Trained staff doing monthly checks tend to spot a low gauge or a missing pin first. A session sometimes turns up a unit that has been used, damaged or is overdue. Fixing it is service work. In California that work must be done by a firm and technician licensed by the State Fire Marshal: ours is done by Hedrick Fire Protection, which holds C-16 and C-10 contractor licenses and is State Fire Marshal licensed under Title 19 for extinguisher service. For that work, see our annual fire extinguisher certification and fire extinguisher refill pages.

More Los Angeles County pages

Training questions from employers

How often do employees need fire extinguisher training?

At hiring, then at least once a year. That is the OSHA 1910.157(g) rule.

Does training count as our annual extinguisher inspection?

No, annual maintenance is separate work done by a certified technician and recorded on the tag that hangs on each cylinder, while training covers your people.

Our kitchen has a hood suppression system. Does training change?

A little. Kitchens with suppression systems also need a Class K extinguisher, and cooks should know it's the one to reach for on an oil or grease fire. The hood system itself is covered on our kitchen fire suppression page.

Questions about your site: (213) 568-0188 or socal@1profire.com