How To Reduce Fire Risks To Protect Yourself

It’s important to reduce fire risks in your workplace, not only to protect yourself, your staffers, and your customers, but also to comply with local fire codes, minimize potential destruction, and minimize potential liability issues. 

Fortunately, the best strategies for reducing fire risks in the workplace are inexpensive and accessible.

Identify and Properly Control Specific Hazards

Arguably the best strategy you can employ is identifying and properly controlling specific hazards. Almost every workplace has potential fire hazards, including specific elements that are prone to starting fires, heating elements, and materials that are highly flammable. Any open flame is an automatic fire hazard, as is any component of your workplace that naturally produces significant heat. Any highly flammable material is also considered dangerous, as a single spark or source of heat could cause a massive conflagration.

One way to control these types of hazards is to choose versions of these hazards that are inherently less dangerous. For example, if you use electrical transformers in your place of business, you need to choose the right type of transformer for your needs. This way, you’ll be far less likely to encounter an electrical malfunction, and therefore less likely to experience an electrical fire.

Another important strategy is to properly label, identify, and teach your employees about these fire hazards. If everyone on your team knows the risks and deliberately tries to avoid increasing those risks, your workplace environment will be much safer.

You can also implement physical controls to prevent or minimize the potential damage associated with fires. For example, gas pumps have many features designed to control or limit the flow of gasoline specifically to minimize these risks.

Educate and Train Your Employees

It’s also important to educate and train your employees on the importance of fire safety. Hopefully, they already know that fires should be avoided, but they may not be able to recognize all the fire hazards in your place of employment, and they may not know what to do in the event of an emergency.

Employees responsible for handling or working near specific fire hazards should be even more aware of the risks and how to properly control them. Consider giving them extra attention, such as making them pass a test before they’re allowed to work in such a demanding position.

Your education and training will be far more effective if your leaders and supervisors are on point. They should be setting a good example by taking fire hazards seriously and imposing disciplinary action whenever anyone violates fire safety standards.

Schedule Regular Maintenance on Your Equipment

Make sure you schedule regular maintenance on your equipment. Wear and tear can take a significant toll on even your best equipment, making it less reliable and more likely to start a fire. With routine maintenance, you’ll be able to identify issues proactively and take care of them.

Keep Your Environment Clean

Cleanliness is important for reducing both the chances of a fire and the severity of that fire. Cluttered areas, especially those cluttered with highly flammable materials, can go up in smoke in an instant. A clean-as-you-go approach is indispensable for fire safety, especially in environments that feature open flames or other immediate fire hazards. As a simple example, the line cooks in a kitchen should be cleaning periodically throughout their shifts to avoid the risk of food residue catching fire.

Improve Security

Arson is a leading cause of building and structure fires as well. Even if you’ve perfectly controlled all the fire hazards within your business, this remains a risk. Accordingly, you should improve security at your physical establishment, installing surveillance cameras and hiring security staff members to identify potential arsonists before they strike.

Emergency Preparedness

Even with the best measures in place, fires are still possible. That’s why it’s important for your business to also have emergency preparedness plans in place.

• Create an evacuation plan. Make sure there’s an evacuation plan in place, and make sure all your employees feel confident with it. If a fire breaks out, you won’t have time to go over the details.
• Install fire suppression systems. Fire suppression systems are available in many forms, from basic water sprinklers to advanced clean agent systems. Be sure to include some form of fire suppression near every fire hazard.
•  Install and test alarm systems. Install and routinely test alarm systems to notify you whenever smoke is detected. Ideally, these systems will contact your local fire department automatically.
• Make peripheral extinguishing options available. Make secondary options, like hand-operated fire extinguishers, available in your workplace as well.

It’s almost impossible to perfectly control every conceivable fire hazard in a business. But if you’re willing to put in the time and effort to reduce fire hazards and appropriately plan to respond to fires, your entire workplace environment can become safer.

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