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Fire Protection Contractors Ask: Is Your Safety Plan Up to Date?

As fire protection contractors, we know the vital importance of keeping your building fire protection plan updated.

Each year, numerous establishments across the country are ruined because of poor preparedness when it comes to fire safety and protection. As a building owner, you are hopeful that you’ll never have to deal with a fire emergency in your building. However, if it did, how prepared are you?

If your fire protection plan is not up to date, then it’s time to rethink your situation. In today’s post, we, as fire protection contractors, will share some smart tips to help you with your building fire protection efforts.

As always, don’t hesitate to reach out to us for all your commercial and residential fire safety and security needs. Our fire protection contractors have the knowledge and experience to ensure your property is safe and protected during any fire or security-related emergency.

Devise an Emergency Evacuation Plan

It's important to create a building evacuation plan.It’s critical to plan for a smooth and effective building evacuation plan during an emergency. When creating an emergency evacuation plan, make sure that the following points are covered:

  • Crowd management strategies
  • Clear evacuation paths and routes, including secondary exit routes if ever the primary ones fall through
  • Notifying the local fire or police department
  • Exit routes for persons with disabilities
  • Locations of fire extinguishers, standpipe stations, fire alarm systems and controls, and manual fire alarm pull stations
  • Map of the exterior site that details where the fire hydrants, fire lanes, and outdoor gathering areas for building evacuees

Employee Training and Education About Fire Safety and Alertness

Each and every single member of your staff must have the familiarization with the organization’s fire safety plan, including fire prevention and basic fire handling – plain and simple. The way to accomplish this is by providing sufficient training and education to your employees.

The training you should provide must include handling of fire extinguishers, evacuation training, and proper housekeeping and fire prevention strategies.

Training on the Use of Fire Extinguishers

Designating specific employees to use fire extinguishers in case of a fire emergency is essential. This way, they are not scrambling or getting confused about who gets to fulfill the task. Certified fire protection contractors are authorized to provide OSHA-approved training on fire extinguisher use.

If your commercial building doesn’t pose any high-risk situations, then you may instruct your staff to evacuate without even using fire extinguishers.

Training on Evacuation

Aside from fire extinguisher training, you must also make sure that your staff knows all evacuation routes within the building as well as the gathering sites outside for all evacuees.

It would be extremely helpful if you assign a committee that will handle the evacuation for the rest of the team members. Aside from leading to the evacuation, the committee can be in charge of leading the use of fire extinguishers and caring for disabled building occupants.

Housekeeping Training

Proper housekeeping strategies include correct storage of flammable materials, keeping emergency routes free of obstructions, and disposing of flammable items such as cigarettes or grease (if it’s a commercial kitchen).

Inspection and Maintenance of Fire Extinguishers

Work with fire protection contractors to ensure proper inspection of fire extinguishers. Aside from being a critical step in your fire prevention efforts, fire extinguisher inspections are also required by fire codes.

Your staff, since they are the ones frequently in the building, can also regularly check the fire extinguishers.

They just need to make sure that each device is in the right place (as recommended by fire protection contractors), the routes to the fire extinguishers are not blocked, the tamper seals and locking pins are intact, the pressure gauge shows that the device is fully charged, the manuals are legible, and the fire extinguishers are still approved for use, meaning they are not expired.

Another related task you can assign to your fire safety committee is to ensure that fire extinguishers are scheduling the mandatory inspections and keeping the devices up to date with the inspections.

Inspection and Maintenance of Fire Safety Systems

Ensure that all fire safety systems are inspected by certified fire protection contractors.

Fire protection systems require regular inspections and maintenance to make sure they are fully operational. Call reliable fire protection contractors to professionally check your fire alarm systems, fire sprinkler systems, fire hydrants, fire pumps, fire suppression systems, emergency lighting, fire extinguishers, and more

These fire protection professionals can ensure that everything is in good working order. If there are any replacements or repairs needed for any component, they can provide the service for you.