[foreverdriven]

I recall at a previous job that we had to have a special yellow fire extinguisher if we were cutting aluminum and stainless in a production atmosphere . It may cause a chemical reaction and burn. Can anyone help with what the technical end of that? Tryen to explain it to the new safety guy and i got a doe in the headlights look.

[underthetire]

We cut stainless and aluminum back to back on a daily basis. Never an issue for us. We do have downdraft dust collection. Been doing it for 25 years on the same co2 amada.

[xjdubber]

If you cut aluminum on a water table it can build up hydrogen gas underneath and go boom, have never heard that about stainless. all though there is different kinds of fire extinguishers available, i do not think you will benefit from one , if there is would be a gas buildup and it catches fire. It will be a very quick burn or explosion might move the sheet a little bit and that would be it. This would not happen on a downdraft table.

edit:
As a side note, the yellow fire extinguisher would have been for class D fires see here Fire class - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
good for combustible metal.

[foreverdriven]

Well from what i was told years ago, it had to do with the laser sprayen the molten stainless on the aluminum slag. Some odd chemical reaction that collects in the dust collector and catches it on fire. The place i worked at burnt up 2 dust collectors.