Yes I know what you wrote, I read it. In many local filling station kiosks the emergency stop is a mushroom head that can be pushed in one single action. What is the exact wording around the external firefighters' switches that you install?

The camper van incident is only an example of where an emergency switching off may be required. I do believe that it happened as it has been reported in the national press. I have made no comment on the cause of the fire or when it started. That is not relevant.

Z.

Zoomup,

Here you go,:

" Where the site is unattended, partially unattended, or attendant operated, an emergency switching device has to be provided in the forecourt area, outside of the hazardous areas, visible from all dispensing positions and readily accessible for rapid operation in emergency (i.e. it should not be positioned more than 2 metres above the ground). On large sites a number of suitably located operating means may be required to ensure rapid operation of the emergency switching device.

Where dispensers incorporate loudspeakers, the supply to the loudspeaker system has to be interrupted by the emergency switching arrangement. 

The operating means (such as handle or pushbutton) for the device is to be coloured red against a yellow background. Resetting this device alone should not restore the supply. The separate single means of restoring the supply should be manual and located within the building where it is inaccessible to unauthorised persons. 

A conspicuous, durable and legible notice has to be fitted adjacent to every operating means of the emergency switch device, as prescribed in 9.9.11.".

GTB

If your CU is fizzing then perhaps you might wish to fit a 100A DP contactor in the tails coupled to a remote E/stop button? Or better still, why not switch off at the isolator and investigate the cause of the 'fizzing' instead?

I don't think that a normal careful person would drive a smoking vehicle into a filling station.

Z.

I personally knew a guy (boyfriend of a friend) who, when flames started coming out from under his bonnet, drove into a nearly filling station so he could use one of their fire extinguishers. They were less than pleased. And he was less than pleased when they demanded he pay to have to extinguisher recharged. Not the sharpest tool in the box.

I do not think that anybody would drive a vehicle that was on fire into a filling station.

Z.

Well all I know is that the guy related the tale to me within the context of being really annoyed that the petrol station was trying to charge him for using their fire extinguisher. Given my general opinion of him, I found his tale (of being on fire and pulling at at filling station to grab a fire extinguisher) credible. But this was 35 years ago.

The usual advise the the public in the event of a fire is to get out and call the fire brigade ... not hang around messing with switches, especially when turning them off wouldn't likely extinguish the fire anyway.

Emergency stops are usually needed where there's a more immediate threat to life or limb - e.g. clothing or hair caught in a lathe or similar machine dragging someone in - where prompt action makes a lot of difference to the outcome.

There's no point putting them on things that happen so slowly that other measures (e.g. exiting the building) are more effective, or so fast (e.g. electric shock) that it'll all be over before anyone could have pressed a button anyway.

   - Andy.

Above, the installation of a Firefighters' emergency switch has been discussed. There may well be occasions where a member of the public will have to use such a device at a filling station. The switching off of such a switch may well reduce any additional hazards and prevent fuel from being pumped onto or around a burning vehicle. The use of the firefighters switch may lessen any potential disaster. I don't think that I would run away if I could safely turn such a switch off in case of an emergency.

Ref below: Andy, there is a bang and a flash. Would you just run away or quickly investigate? Perhaps operate the fire alarm by a call point. Perhaps use a fire extinguisher. Perhaps operate an emergency stop button to limit the material that may be loaded onto a fire.

Small explosion at South Kirkby Waste Recycling Centre caught on video | Watch (msn.com)

Z.

the installation of a Firefighters' emergency switch has been discussed.

BS 7671 calls it a "Firefighter's switch" not a Firefighters' emergency switch - it's in a section of its own (537.4) quite separate from the requirements for emergency switching off (537.3.3) and is normally mounted at about 2.75m above ground level (i.e. beyond BS 7671's 2.5m idea of arm's reach). It seems to me that it would be "imaginative" to say it was intended either for use by members of the public, or as a means of emergency switching in the conventional sense.

Ref below: Andy, there is a bang and a flash. Would you just run away or quickly investigate? Perhaps operate the fire alarm by a call point. Perhaps use a fire extinguisher. Perhaps operate an emergency stop button to limit the material that may be loaded onto a fire.

Me - I'd run. If there was one of whatever caused the explosion in that pile of rubbish, there may well be more - and if anything more likely to explode now they're exposed to shock and heat. Hit a call point on the way out if I happened to be passing one anyway for sure - to help others get out - but otherwise better let the place burn to the ground than risk even one life unnecessarily. Sure I'd look back as soon as I felt I was at a safe distance, but I spent too much of a mis-spent youth playing with matches and open fires not to realize that even a simple fire in a confined space can easily go 'whoof' when you least expect it to.

  - Andy.