The United States incurred close to $25.6 billion in losses due to fires in the year 2018. Unintended causes and electrical malfunctions were the leading causes of fire in the majority of these instances. The break out of a fire inside your business premise not only endangers every person’s life within the vicinity but also puts your property in grave danger.
The consequences of a business-related fire can bring your source of livelihood to its knees within a blink of an eye. If you own an enterprise, you must establish different ways to prevent fires within the commercial building.
If you develop appropriate fire emergency response techniques, you won’t have that constant fear of the unknown. This guide provides all the tricks in the book on how to prevent fires by adopting useful technology and best practices.
Table of Contents
- How to Prevent Fires in Your Business
- 1. Video Flame Detection
- 2. Install, Inspect and Maintain Fire Extinguishers
- 3. Train Your Staff on Fire Emergency Response
- 4. Consider Automatic Sprinklers to Prevent Fires
- 5. Prioritize Routine Risk Assessment
- 6. Ensure Regular Housekeeping within the Business
- 7. Establish a Relationship with First Responders
- Fire Management Requires Proactive Measures
How to Prevent Fires in Your Business
While current safety regulations have led to the reduction of fires at the places of work, you can never be sure. It’s essential to have multiple measures in place to help you deal with fire emergencies in the least time possible. Here are a few options to consider.
1. Video Flame Detection
Technology continues to evolve. With these advancements, comes a wide range of benefits to modern businesses. Fire detection within your business premise is among the many advantages of emerging innovations.
You can now install a video flame detection equipment that monitors your business at all times. The video camera comes with a computer running video analytics software, which helps in detecting smoke. History suggests that most business-related fires end up destroying property of substantial value due to late detection.
It would help if you considered investing in video flame detection cameras to prevent fires in the business. Once you invest in a reliable flame detection equipment, it becomes easy to react decisively in case of fire.
2. Install, Inspect and Maintain Fire Extinguishers
Installing fire extinguishers inside your business premise is a standard requirement for any company. You need to consider the local fire code within your local area to ensure that your business is compliant. Besides that, it would help if you placed constant inspection procedures to ensure that the fire extinguishers undergo routine assessment.
Without proper inspection procedures, you might not know how useful the fire extinguishing apparatus is in case of a fire. More importantly, you need to ensure constant maintenance protocol. Such maintenance procedures need to fall within a specific schedule within a specified period.
3. Train Your Staff on Fire Emergency Response
It’s not enough to have fire extinguishers if the most vulnerable in the building cannot use such equipment to manage the situation. Most fires in commercial buildings start within manageable degrees but gradually increase. If you have well-trained employees on fire management, the handling of the fire may be easier and less destructive.
You might begin by introducing training classes on the proper use of fire extinguishers. It would also help to train your staff on evacuation procedures. Most times, it’s easier to control the slightest sign of flames by first evacuating the majority of employees.
Using technology, you can now optimize fire alarm systems. More buildings are adopting wireless systems to ensure that you respond to fire alarms in the shortest time possible.
4. Consider Automatic Sprinklers to Prevent Fires
More commercial buildings are adopting automatic sprinkler systems. These systems help in fire suppression. They are also a standard requirement in most states.
You might wonder how fire sprinklers work. Well, these critical components respond to heat triggers in a room. The systems also have an aspect of automation. This means that they don’t need human intervention to function.
Automatic sprinklers are critical in your business. The suppression unit is especially useful during the night when fewer people are in the vicinity. With these sprinklers, you will be sure that your business has the fastest line of defense.
5. Prioritize Routine Risk Assessment
If you are wondering how to prevent fires from running down your business, you need to focus on preventive maintenance. This approach involves setting up preparedness assessment protocols within the company after every quarter. You may need the services of a licensed electrician during the process.
Electricity faults contribute to substantial losses in the corporate setting. Unfortunately, most of the underlying susceptibilities to electrical faults may not be easy to detect. That’s why expert risk assessment is necessary.
The assessment may help detect probable electricity deficiencies in your business. The preventive assessment also helps ensure that underlying damages get the needed attention. Such procedures cover electrical panels, extension cords, and other wiring fixtures. “The best way to manage risk is to attempt to spot it and plan accordingly before it happens”, according to David Rowland, head of marketing at Engage EHS. This is why risk assessment is now so important to a business. With proper risk assessment, you can make plans, spot potential risks, and then do everything you can to minimize their impact.
6. Ensure Regular Housekeeping within the Business
Most of the unintended causes of fires within commercial buildings can be preventable through better housekeeping procedures. Actions as simple as ensuring proper storage of flammable content can save your business from substantial losses. You might also consider setting up designated smoking zones for your employees or clients.
Ensure that you discard trash such as plastics and paper on the go. In case of a slight fire, such material can quickly accelerate the spread of the fire. Part of the housekeeping procedure should involve removing as much trash as you can as often as possible.
7. Establish a Relationship with First Responders
While setting up internal fire suppression methods is critical, you also need to consider external support. You can do this by getting in touch with the local first responders to ensure speedy response in case of fire. You can do this by establishing a relationship with local fire departments with the capacity to manage fire in the shortest span.
You can start by sharing your building’s floor plan with the first responders. This makes the process of managing fire emergencies easy. You should consider getting in touch with your local first responders to ensure that you develop proper rapports.
Fire Management Requires Proactive Measures
You have invested a lot in your business. It would help to consider every step necessary to ensure that you minimize the risk of fire.
The annual losses due to fire run into billions of dollars. You don’t want to be part of these statistics. You might need to consider innovative technologies such as video fire detection and other best practices to help prevent fires and minimize the risk of losses.
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