Fire safety training: Office Fire Prevention Tips

Fire safety training is paramount for staff in any environment. This article explores the risks of fires in offices and how you can prevent the unthinkable of happening. It has been a year since the incident in which fire consumed the Grenfell Tower, 72 people lost their lives and 151 homes were destroyed. Such huge tragedies always serve as a reminder for us to take a look at the bigger picture regarding fire safety, and the results we can find there are even grimmer. According to research published by Home Office, during the period from April 2016 to March 2017, fire and rescue services in England attended more than 160,000 fire incidents and reported as much as 7081 casualties and 261 fatalities. Small businesses and office premises are, by all means, a part of this statistic. This highlights that there is a real need for fire safety training among staff members. 

From April 2016 to March 2017, fire and rescue services in England attended more than 160,000 fire incidents

What makes this situation even more complicated from the business perspective is that even when fatal outcomes are avoided, businesses continue to suffer due to long downtimes while the offices are repaired, and employees may experience physical injuries and psychological trauma which keep them off work for extended periods of time. How can we put an end to this looming threat?

The most common workplace hazards

A famous author, Frank Herbert once said that knowing where the trap is is the first step in evading it. So, let's take a look at some of the red flags we should pay attention to if we want to successfully avoid an office fire.

• Worn-out electronics – Here, you can count everything from defective hardware to loose wires and overloaded sockets.
• Combustible and flammable materials – This hazard is especially evident in industrial warehouses that store large quantities of flammable liquids and solvents. Still, even something like built-up stockpiles of paper can be dangerous if exposed to heat.
• Objects that generate heat – Usually pieces of electrical equipment or machinery.
• Unreliable fire-fighting routines and equipment – Some of the most common examples we can find in a lot of offices are blocked fire exits, fire doors that are left open, untested fire alarms and faulty fire extinguishers.
• Human error – By far, one of the most frequent causes of workplace accidents.

Related course: Fire Marshal Course

Some of the strategies staff can implement to prevent the fire

This list can go on, but even when we consider these five of the most common workplace risks, we can see that the threats are coming from all sides, and the strategy we use to keep them at bay must be equally as versatile. Here is how you can prevent fires in an office:

• Get to know the safety requirements and comply with them – The government of Great Britain prescribes a lot of regulations regarding workplace safety, some of them covering the issue of fire hazards. By getting to know these regulations you will be able to notice some of the workplace issues you may be completely unaware of and start developing your prevention strategy from this foundation.
• Invest in a reliable fire protection system – The safest way to do this is to look for solutions that will combine manual and automated protections systems. Relying exclusively on fallible systems like smoke detectors and sprinklers can jeopardize the safety of your employees, so be sure to back them up with pull stations, strobes and manual alarms.
• Invest in new equipment and maintenance – There is no way around it. Worn-out electrical equipment poses a major threat and the only way to address this issue is to spend some money on new hardware and schedule regular inspections and maintenance works.
• Work on a layout – In other words, make sure you have enough safe storage space for combustible and flammable materials, and no objects are blocking the evacuation routes.

Engaging the employees in the fire prevention

But all these efforts will go in vain if you don't realise that engaged and educated employees are the most valuable asset you can use to improve workplace safety. A trained worker will be in a much better position to notice faulty equipment than any scheduled inspection. Finding a reliable emergency electrician to act accordingly and prevent a potential tragedy is the easier part of the job. If they are aware of the potential issues, your employees may even step up and suggest a possible solution. So, as a final effort, be sure to implement some of these measures to empower your staff to take a bigger role in fire prevention:

• Organize seminars covering topics regarding workplace safety.
• Perform regular fire drills and response fire safety training.
• Have the fire safety regulations and evacuation plans and procedures displayed in all often-visited places throughout the company's premises.
• Nurture an atmosphere of transparency and equality where your employees won't be afraid to pass the information and propose useful ideas.

Implementing all these measures won't guarantee your office complete safety, but they are a good place to start. The most important thing you should take out of this is that this danger is a never-ending one, and that lowering your guard can prove to be disastrous, so whatever you do, make sure it's not a one-note effort. Author bio: Mike Johnston is a home improvement blogger, DIY enthusiast and sustainability buff from Sydney. He is a regular writer at Smooth Decorator and a contributor on several interior design and eco blogs, always on the lookout for new ideas and latest trends in the field.