Preparing Employees to Fight Fire in Your Business
Fire is least expected. It is unpredictable, and it can cause huge losses to your business through the destruction of property and loss of lives. It is a kind of emergency that takes place at lots of workplaces across the country every year. You may not think of fire in the workplace, but it can leave you devastated with everything destroyed if you are not fully prepared to tackle fire. You can only repent later and get some compensation from your insurance company, but a fire can deal a severe blow to your business. Here is how to make sure your employees are ready and in a state of alert to respond quickly in the case of a fire.
Fight or Flee
The first instinct of a human being surrounded by fire is to think of ways to escape from the scene. This is a critical decision that an employee in the workplace must make in a split second, depending upon the circumstances and the severity of the fire. However, if your employees have received proper training against fire, they can respond in a cool manner and perform actions to douse the fire rather than fleeing from the scene. If fire safety systems are installed at your business premises and your employees have been trained to use them, you can expect your workers to fight rather than flee in case of a fire. However, your workers should also be given training to make an assessment of the situation and be able to save themselves in case of a fire.
Why you need to train employees?
You have vested interests in saving your business from getting destroyed in a fire. But you also have a great responsibility of saving the lives of your employees should a fire break out at your workplace. A little bit of training in the use of fire systems and proper action during an emergency can not only keep your employees safe but also keep the damage because of fire to a minimum.
Have an action plan in place in case of an emergency
It is imperative to chalk out an emergency plan of action to respond to the event of a fire at your workplace. This plan should be discussed with all your employees, with the roles and responsibilities of each employee clearly defined in the event of a fire. This plan of action should be tailor-made according to the location and features of the building. There should be diagrams describing escape routes in case of fire and the actions required by employees for the activation of fire alarms and fire extinguishers.
Create an evacuation plan to protect all the workers
In the event of a fire, many workers are trapped inside a room that is burning from the outside. You should have an evacuation plan in place to save the lives of your workers. Your employees should also be taught crowd control techniques to make sure no one gets injured or crushed to death because of panic or suffocation.
Assign specific roles to employees
In addition to using exit routes and evacuating other employees, you should also assign tasks of using fire extinguishers and sprinklers to certain employees.
Training workers to prevent fire
While fires are unpredictable, most of the fires can be avoided if workers are taught to follow practices designed to prevent fires. Handling and storage of inflammable products should be done properly, and they should be kept away from sources of heat and open flames. If your business makes use of chemicals and other inflammable product s, you should ensure proper ventilation in place to avoid fires. Smoking should be banned in the work place and butts of cigarettes should be should be disposed carefully by workers when smoking outside.
Training workers to respond to a fire
All workers should understand and follow your action plan in case of a fire. Workers should be provided with training to use fire extinguishers in case of a fire. You should conduct mock fire drills from time to time to keep your workers alert in case of a fire. Workers should be aware of the points where smoke alarms are placed. They should know the sounds of these smoke alarms to react promptly in case of a fire. Similarly, workers should know where fire extinguishers are placed at the workplace. The use of fire extinguishers can mean the difference between fire causing minimal damage and a place completely charred because of a fire.
Do not forget to post information regarding the use of a fire extinguisher near the extinguisher. This is necessary so that anyone who is in the vicinity at the time of a fire can take the necessary steps and prevent the fire from becoming uncontrolled.
You can have lots of peace of mind if you have a workforce that has received training to deal with a fire at workplace.
Reach out to Fire Protection Inc. Today for a Consultation for your fire safety needs.