Bad day to be a UK TV broadcaster

[Nick]

Agreed that Halon is nasty. Although it displaces oxygen I thought its primary action was to muck up (technical term, can't be more specific) the chemistry of combustion thus extinguishing the fire. In ancient times carbon tetrachloride was used in some extinguishers and worked this way. The by products of fire and just about any chlorinated hydocarbon include phosgene. Lovely

PS: I looked up Inergen and it works simply by displacing oxygen. This page has a couple of howlers: https://www.firesuppression.co.uk/inergen.aspx
"INERGEN fire suppression systems also have a zero global warming potential,....". It contains CO2.
"..as it is organic in structure ...". It's Argon, Nitrogen and CO2. At a stretch I suppose you can call CO2 organic but it's not usually thought of as such.

While not toxic, it can still kill by suffocation.

Quoting from the Inergen brochure at https://www.nist.gov/system/files/docume...301006.pdf : (always go for the source, Luke!)

INERGEN works by displacing a proportion of the air within the enclosure, thereby lowering the oxygen to a level that cannot sustain combustion and at the same time ensures the  oxygen remains at levels within the enclosure that are safe for humans.

...so it doesn't kill humans. Not if the installation is designed correctly.