Fire Extinguisher Cabinets

Fire extinguisher cabinets house and protect a portable extinguisher and, where a public space calls for it, deter tampering or shield the unit from weather. Choose by how the cabinet mounts, whether the wall is fire-rated and whether your extinguisher fits the cabinet's interior. For the full walkthrough, see our Fire Extinguisher Cabinet Selection Guide.

Mounting. Recessed and trimless cabinets sit inside the wall and stick out the least. Semi-recessed cabinets sit partly in the wall, for walls too shallow for a full tub. Surface mount cabinets fasten to the wall face, for masonry, thin walls and rated walls you don't want to cut into. In an occupied corridor, choose a recessed cabinet or a semi-recessed one whose overall projection, handle included, stays within the ADA limit (2010 ADA Standards 307.2). Deep trims and bubble doors stick out further, so check the cut sheet.

Fire-rated walls. Recessing a cabinet into a fire-resistance-rated wall calls for a listed fire-rated cabinet, installed to its listing, so the wall keeps its rating. Or surface-mount a standard cabinet, which NFPA 10 also allows on a rated wall because it needs no cabinet-sized opening.

Fit. Size a cabinet by the extinguisher, not the weight class: compare its height, width and cylinder diameter with the cabinet's inside height, width and depth. A wide-body 10 lb unit or a 20 lb unit needs a deeper tub than a standard 10 lb. The cabinet maker's list of the extinguishers each model takes is the final word.

Extinguisher selection and placement follow NFPA 10 and its mounting requirements. The cabinet does not change which extinguisher the code calls for, though NFPA 10 has its own rules for where a cabinet goes and how it opens.