Basic Strategies to Significantly Enhance Fire Safety in Your Building

Your duty as a building owner or manager is to ensure that it will remain functional for a long time. You should also make sure that the building will retain its appeal and value after a few years. These goals and objectives can, fortunately, be achieved through regular cleaning and maintenance with the help of professionals.

But one vital thing that your building should be able to provide to the occupants, visitors, and others is safety. Buildings can be gradually damaged by faulty structural components. They can, however, deteriorate rapidly through the occurrence of fire.

Fire can be devastating to your property, especially if it injures people or claims lives. To enhance fire safety in your building, here are some basic strategies you can implement.

Perform a Fire Risk Assessment

A fire risk assessment should be performed by an inspector on your beloved building. The primary purposes of this assessment are to identify any fire hazards and people at risk, evaluate, remove, or reduce the identified risks, generate an emergency plan, and provide adequate training to building personnel and others. Once the assessment is complete, it can keep your building safe from fire, ensuring the safety of the people inside and around it.

Evaluate Passive Fire Protection

Passive fire protection is essential in your building as it can contain a fire or decelerate its spread. Its presence provides occupants inside the building an opportunity to evacuate without getting hurt. It also gives firefighters enough time to position themselves around and inside the building during a fire, allowing them to extinguish a fire as efficiently as possible. Some passive fire protection elements your building should maximise are fire doors, windows, and wall assemblies, fire-resistant coating, and fire-resistance-rated floor ceilings.

Install Fire Detection and Alarms

Fire detection systems and alarms should also be present in your building as they can notify occupants once they detect fire-related elements in one of its rooms or spaces. These systems work by producing a sound whenever they sense smoke or heat, warning everyone inside the building to evacuate. Some types of these systems may even be equipped with remote signalling equipment, which immediately alerts firefighters about a fire situation in the building.

Incorporate Emergency Lighting

Fire can easily damage the electrical components of your building. It can even spread faster once appliances, equipment, and others are hit. Hence, the electrical supply of your building is often shut down right away once a fire occurs. The lack of power, however, also means that the lighting in your building is non-existent. But by incorporating emergency lighting, your occupants can still vacate the building safely, especially if the lights are installed in the right places. They should operate automatically once the power cuts off.

Check and Examine Fire Doors

Fire doors are fire-resistant doors that can reduce the spread of fire and smoke between separate compartments of your building. They ensure that people can safely evacuate the building. They even minimise fire damage to your building. Having them checked and examined regularly can ensure that they can operate optimally. They can also be effective during a fire if they are free from any obstruction.